NASA's DART spacecraft collides with asteroid

On Sept. 26, 2022, at precisely 6:14 p.m. ET, a box-shaped spacecraft no bigger than a loveseat smashed directly into an asteroid wider than a football field. The planned impact knocked the space rock off its orbit, showing for the first time that an asteroid can potentially be deflected away from Earth. This shows the final five-and-a-half minutes of images before the collision. (Learn more: https://news.mit.edu/2023/3q-what-we-learned-asteroid-smashing-dart-mission-0302)

Images: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL

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