It orbits a bigger asteroid called Didymos in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The goal, smash into this bad boy, an asteroid called Dimorphos. It's a multi-million dollar mission that the space agency launched last year. NASA's DART stands for Double Asteroid Redirection Test. And so, this test will help give us confidence that we do have a mitigation strategy should a threat ever be identified. So, yeah, NASA wants to be prepared in case we ever found ourselves facing a similar situation.ĪNDREA RILEY, NASA: We're constantly looking in the skies for potential new asteroids and threats. Not to mention a giant dust cloud leading to massive changes in the climate and eventually causing the dinosaurs to go extinct. For example, some 66 million years ago, a huge asteroid smashed into Earth and experts believe it caused widespread fires and a massive tsunami, which scientists have just mapped. But it's definitely something that has happened before. No need to be alarmed, there are none headed for us at the moment. Yep, believe it or not, NASA has been worried about an asteroid hitting Earth. Yeah, that could work.ĭART CAPTAIN: What, who said that? Was it an asteroid?īut it had absolutely nothing to do with these guys. We tell the asteroid to back off in a real stern voice, yeah? Oh, okay, well we could try catching the asteroid with a really big net, yeah? Well, what if we tried smashing a rocket into the asteroid in order to change its orbit so it's no longer a threat. A group of like-minded people dedicated to destroying all asteroids.ĭART CAPTAIN: Okay team, here's what I've come up with. DART CAPTAIN: If there's one thing, I've learnt from watching sci-fi films, it's that I should be terrified that an asteroid will fall out of the sky and hit me on the head.ĭART CAPTAIN: But never fear, because I've come up with DART, Destroying Asteroids (before they) Ruin Things.
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