NASA’s historic DART mission sees spacecraft smash into asteroid

By Asher Notheis

Published September 26, 2022 11:25pm ET

NASA’s historic DART mission sees spacecraft smash into asteroid — This illustration made available by Johns Hopkins APL and NASA depicts NASA's DART probe, foreground right, and Italian Space Agency's (ASI) LICIACube, bottom right, at the Didymos system before impact with the asteroid Dimorphos, left. DART slammed into the asteroid head-on at 14,000 mph knocking it into a slightly tighter orbit around its companion space rock. (Steve Gribben/Johns Hopkins APL/NASA via AP)

NASA began its mission for the “Double Asteroid Redirection Test” on Monday, which saw the DART spacecraft intentionally crash into the Dimorphos asteroid. The mission was intended to serve as a test to see whether the space agency will be able to protect Earth from flying asteroids should the planet face an Armageddon-type scenario, according to Axios.