Bam! NASA spacecraft crashes into asteroid in defense test
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A NASA spacecraft rammed an asteroid at blistering speed Monday in an unprecedented dress rehearsal for the day a killer rock menaces Earth. Definitely, I will.” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson reminded people earlier in the day via Twitter that, “No, this is not a movie plot.” He added in a prerecorded video: ”We’ve all seen it on movies like “Armageddon,” but the real-life stakes are high.” Monday’s target: a 525-foot asteroid named Dimorphos. Launched last November, the vending machine-size Dart — short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test — navigated to its target using new technology developed by Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, the spacecraft builder and mission manager. Johns Hopkins scientist Carolyn Ernst said the spacecraft was definitely “kaput,” with remnants possibly in the fresh crater or cascading into space with the asteroid’s ejected material. “The dinosaurs didn’t have a space program to help them know what was coming, but we do,” NASA’s senior climate adviser Katherine Calvin said, referring to the mass extinction 66 million years ago believed to have been caused by a major asteroid impact, volcanic eruptions or both.
NASA spacecraft's asteroid crash offers insight in case one ever threatens Earth
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