NASA DART Team Confirms Slamming Spacecraft Into Asteroids Can Deflect Them

Space.com

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) successfully moved asteroid moonlet Dimorphos "by a whopping 33 minutes," according to NASA. See the highlights here.  Credit: NASA

Transcript

00:01We're embarking on a new era of humankind.

00:11Didymos and Dimorphos make a great target.

00:15We needed an asteroid with a moon that you can see from ground-based telescopes around the world.

00:21We're doing this mission to prove that we can deflect an asteroid.

00:26Five, four, three, two, one.

00:34And liftoff of the Falcon 9 at dark on NASA's first planetary defense test to intentionally crash into an asteroid.

00:46Even if we do everything right, our sensors work well, our spacecraft is doing well, even then we might still miss.

00:53Four, three, two, one.

01:00For the first time ever, humanity has changed the orbit of a planetary object.

01:11NASA confirms that DART successfully changed the targeted asteroid's trajectory.

01:23Using the ground-based telescopes around the world to watch the system and see how it's affected by this impact event.

01:29This is a watershed moment for planetary defense.

01:36And a watershed moment for humanity.

01:40NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

01:43NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

01:45NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

01:47NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

01:48NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

01:49NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

01:50NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

01:51NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

01:52NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

01:53NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

01:54NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

01:55NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

01:56NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

01:57NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

01:58NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

01:59NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

02:00NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

02:01NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

02:02NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

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