NASA Dart Mission: NASA launches spacecraft to kick an asteroid off course | World News
WASHINGTON: NASA is preparing a mission to deliberately smash a spacecraft into an asteroid -- a test run should humanity ever need to stop a giant space rock from wiping out life on Earth. It may sound like science fiction, but the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) is a real proof-of-concept experiment, blasting off at 10:21 pm Pacific Time Tuesday (0621 GMT Wednesday) aboard a SpaceX rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The goal is to slightly alter the trajectory of Dimorphos, a "moonlet" around 525 feet (160 meters, or two Statues of Liberty) wide that circles a much larger asteroid called Didymos (2,500 feet in diameter). The pair orbit the Sun together. Impact should take place in the fall of 2022, when the binary asteroid system is 6.8 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth, almost the nearest point they ever get. "What we're trying to learn is how to deflect a threat," NASA's top scientist Thomas Zuburchen said o...