PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — NASA is going to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid to see if the impact will alter the trajectory of the asteroid.
Seriously.
It’s called The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission. The launch went off as planned at 10:21 p.m. PT Tuesday, November 23, 2021.
“The goal of the mission is to see if intentionally crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid is an effective way to change its course, should an Earth-threatening asteroid be discovered in the future. DART’s target is the binary near-Earth asteroid Didymos and its moonlet, which pose no threat to Earth,” NASA said.
The DART spacecraft will crash into the chosen asteroid in about 11 months. It’s the size of a vending machine and will smash into the asteroid at 15,000 mph.
If this sounds like the plot of Armageddon, well, it’s very similar.