NASA smacked a spacecraft into an asteroid – and learned details about its 12-million-year history

  • Written by: Eleanor K. Sansom, Research Associate, Curtin University
NASA smacked a spacecraft into an asteroid – and learned details about its 12-million-year historyArtist impression of ESA's Hera mission to Didymos and Dimorphos.ESA/Science Office

NASA’s DART mission – Double Asteroid Redirection Test – was humanity’s first real-world planetary defence mission.

In September 2022, the DART spacecraft smashed into the companion “moon” of a small asteroid 11 million kilometres...

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