NASA's 'Double Asteroid Redirection Test', or DART, has made impact with an asteroid. Here's what you need to know
If an asteroid was on a collision course with Earth, like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, could we stop it? The Double Asteroid Redirection Test — or DART — is a small spacecraft on a one-way mission to try to send an asteroid off-course through kinetic impact. Loading YouTube content DRACO's jobs are to: Support DART's navigation and keep it on target Measure the size and shape of Dimorphos Provide detailed views of the location of impact DART also has its own "mini-photographer" in the form of a Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging Asteroids, otherwise known as LICIACube, up there alongside it. NASA says LICIACube will fly past Dimorphos a few minutes after DART impacts and is supposed to: Confirm DART's impact Capture images of the crater DART leaves on the asteroid Capture images of the opposite hemisphere of Dimorphos that can't be seen from DART The images captured by LICIACube and data from ground-based telescopes will be used by scientists to establish planetary defence strategies, should we ever need them. NASA made the decision on Monday to roll Artemis I back into the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building to "protect it from possible lightning, damaging winds, and possible debris".
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