NASA's DART spacecraft successfully altered the orbit of an asteroid
, NASA estimated DART needed to change the orbit period of Dimorphos by 73 seconds or more to call the test a success. The spacecraft beat that benchmark by more than 25 times. "If an Earth-threatening asteroid was discovered, and we could see it far enough away, this technique could be used to deflect it," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a press conference the space agency held on Tuesday."NASA has proven we are serious as a defender of the planet.
DART's success proves the strategy of using a spacecraft to alter the course of an asteroid could work to save the planet, provided such a space rock was detected early enough and wasn't too big. Dimorphos is about the size of a football stadium, making it far smaller than the asteroid that wiped out 75 percent of multicellular life on Earth 66 million years ago.
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