SPACE ROCK DIVERTED Asteroid mission is a smash hit...

NASA STRIKE WILL PROTECT FUTURE EARTH

NASA has successfully crashed a spaceship into an asteroid, taking a giant step in planetary defence.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test Mission intentionally smashed into a space rock 11 million miles from Earth.

It was the first time in history NASA changed the motion of a natural celestial body in space, sparking a new wave of science.

After the successful strike on the rock Dimorphos, DART mission staff erupted in celebration.

“We’re embarking on a new era of humankind, an era in which we potentially have the capability to protect ourselves from something like a dangerous, hazardous asteroid impact,” said Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division.

“What an amazing thing. We’ve never had that capability before.”

NASA administrator Bill Nelson hailed the mission, calling the project a “giant step in planetary defence”.

The US space agency took images of the impact using a small satellite that detached from DART shortly before its final moments.

The photos are now on their way back to Earth and were set to arrive last night. The DART spacecraft – consisting of a box-shaped body about twice the size of a washing machine flanked by two 18-metre-long solar panels – had travelled to reach its target since launching in November 2021 from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Threat

On Monday, it hit Dimorphos — meaning “two forms” and measuring 525 feet in diameter — going at about 13,421 miles per hour. It poses no threat to Earth but represents the size of an asteroid that would cause serious damage were it to hit our planet.

The spacecraft was about 100 times smaller than the rock, so it didn’t obliterate the asteroid. Instead, the DART team hopes the collision changed the asteroid’s speed and path in space.

The mission team compared the strike to a golf cart crashing into one of the Great Pyramids – enough energy to leave an impact crater.

Scientists expect the nudge will shift Dimorphos slightly and make it more gravitationally bound to Didymos, the larger asteroid in the system.

Now the European Space Agency’s Hera mission will launch in 2024 to survey the aftermath of the impact.

PROPERTY EXPERT: Liz

ON TARGET: The asteroid Dimorphos as seen by the DART spacecraft 11 seconds before impact HIGH FIVES: DART staff celebrating the mission’s success and (left) artist’s illustration of impact POWER UP: Spaceship was launched in 2021; (right) asteroid Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos two minutes from impact

POTENTIAL: Lori Glaze