DART: Double Asteroid Redirection Test

2024-08-20 180

The first flight mission for planetary defense, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) seeks to validate a method to protect Earth from the threat of an asteroid impact. By smashing a spacecraft into the smaller member of the binary asteroid system Didymos, DART aims to shift an asteroid's orbit through kinetic impact.

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL