Video: See NASA Spacecraft Impact An Asteroid
(Photo by ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team via Getty Images)
They did it! NASA engineers have successfully flown a spacecraft into an asteroid in hopes of diverting its course.
In the below video posted to Youtube by user EXOPLANET, a cloud of debris can be seen exploding off the surface of asteroid Dimorphos when the refrigerator-sized spacecraft strikes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPaaDSIS-tY
The impact was oberserved by the ATLAS Project, a collection of telescopes in Hawaii that keep an eye on asteroids near Earth. It will be days or weeks before astronomers know for sure if the impact changed the asteroid’s orbit.
The mission is humans’ first attempt to alter the course of a celestial object. Scientists hope that future missions could divert asteroids that threaten the Earth’s surface.
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