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NASA's First Asteroid Deflection Test
Source:
NASA
Published:
November 22, 2021
Historical Date:
November 17, 2021
On Nov. 24, 2021, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft will lift off on a ten-month journey to crash into a distant asteroid – on purpose.
As a test of NASA's planetary defense technologies, DART will collide with and slightly change the speed of Dimorphos, a small 'moonlet' orbiting the asteroid Didymos. Dimorphos will be over 6 million miles (about 9.6 million kilometers) away at the time of impact and does not pose a threat to Earth, either before or after DART's collision.
With nearby satellites and Earth-based telescopes, NASA and our international partners will track DART's effect on Dimorphos and use this data to help protect Earth from future asteroid impact threats.
