NASA’s DART mission successfully crashes spacecraft into asteroid

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) – the world’s first planetary defense technology demonstration – successfully impacted its asteroid target on Monday, the agency’s first attempt to move an asteroid in space.
“IMPACT SUCCESS! Watch from #DARTMIssion’s DRACO Camera, as the vending machine-sized spacecraft successfully collides with asteroid Dimorphos, which is the size of a football stadium and poses no threat to Earth,” NASA tweeted, taking to Twitter. Termed humanity’s first test of planetary defence by NASA, the main objective behind the mission was to redirect the asteroid closer to Didymos, which it orbits, CNN reported.
The asteroid system was the perfect target to test kinetic impact, which may be needed if an asteroid is ever on track to hit Earth.
As per CNN, the process took place when a briefcase-size CubeSat hitched a ride with DART and three minutes after impact, it flew by Dimorphos to capture images and video which will be streamed back to Earth in the coming weeks and months.
The mission is known as the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), according to NASA.