For the first time, the crash of a spaceship is a cause for celebration. On Tuesday, humanity attempted to move an asteroid in space.
A football field-sized asteroid, called Dimorphos, was successfully crashed into by Dart, a vending machine-sized asteroid.
People who watch online had a field day as well. The person who created the account with the name DART the asteroid slayer said that he was going to ruin the asteroid's career. "This one is for the dinosaurs".
There were a lot of jokes about the dinosaurs.
we just clapped an asteroid, humans-1 dinosaurs -0
— hasanabi (@hasanthehun) September 26, 2022
Some people made light of the craft's demise.
If DART can crash and explode while being useful in the field of astronomy then so can I
— Chad Popik (@Astro_Chad) September 26, 2022
Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA, said on Monday that the mission is not a movie plot. The agency wanted to hit Dimorphos in a way that would distract it.
The impact has changed the asteroid's trajectory. The asteroid Didymos is more than 800 metres in diameter and is expected to shorten the circle of Dimorphos by about a tenth of a second.
The demonstration was visible from the South African observatory and the Last Alert System in Hawaii.
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The last 10 months have seen Dart fly in space.
Peter Kalmus, a Nasa climate scientist, pointed out that NASA is testing the ability to divert an asteroid or comet if necessary, but unlike in the film Don't Look Up, "the actual clear and present danger to humanity is of course Earth breakdown from asteroids or comet
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