Washington, Sep 27: After flying in space for 10 months, a NASA spacecraft successfully crashed into an asteroid on in a first-of-its-kind mission to test whether space rocks that might threaten Earth in the future could be nudged safely out of the way, the US space agency said on Tuesday.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) – the world’s first planetary defence technology demonstration — targeted the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, a small body just 160 metres in diameter. Dimorphos orbits a larger 780-metre asteroid called Didymos. Neither asteroid poses a threat to Earth. (Agencies)