NASA Ready for Practice , Mission to Redirect Potentially , Deadly Asteroids.
'The Independent' reports that NASA plans to slam a high-speed spacecraft into a massive asteroid in an attempt to redirect it.
The space agency's experimental mission will take place on September 26 and will be aired live.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission, or DART, was launched in November of 2021.
It is designed to make contact with the asteroid Dimorphos in an attempt to alter its orbit.
'The Independent' reports that Dimorphos does not pose a threat to Earth.
The mission is meant to provide scientists with data needed to construct a similar mission to redirect a hypothetical asteroid that actually threatens Earth.
The mission is a crucial step in NASA's planetary defense initiative which looks to identify and mitigate threats posed by asteroids to life on Earth.
DART is headed for a high-speed collision with Dimorphos around 6.8 million miles from Earth.
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The car-sized spacecraft will impact the asteroid at around 4 miles per second, or 14,400 miles per hour.
In 2027, the European Space Agency's HERA mission will arrive at Dimorphos to assess the impact of DART on the asteroid's orbit.
In 2005, the U.S. Congress passed a law requiring NASA to catalog at least 90% of all asteroids large enough to pose a significant threat to Earth.
Dart is an early test of the types of technologies and mission profiles needed to potentially avert widespread destruction similar to what is believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs
