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NASA launched a planetary defense mission to practice what it would do if a asteroid were to hit Earth.
The DART mission was launched on Tuesday night. Space Launch Complex 4 is located at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. DART flew atop a rocket that was going to smash into an asteroid in a planetary defense test.
During a live broadcast of the launch, NASA's Marie Lewis said that the purpose of the test was to crash into an asteroid.
NASA's DART asteroid-impact mission is explained in pictures.
The first of 9 images is the image 2 of 9.
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, will be launched on a rocket from California at 1:21 a.m. On Nov. 24, 2021. The image is from Bill Ingalls/NASA.
A view from the rocket. The image is from NASA TV.
The launch of the agency's Double Asteroid Redirection Test was broadcasted on NASA TV. The image is from NASA TV.
The launch of the agency's Double Asteroid Redirection Test was broadcasted on NASA TV. The image is from NASA TV.
The launch of the agency's Double Asteroid Redirection Test was broadcasted on NASA TV. The image is from NASA TV.
The Falcon 9 booster landed on the "Of course I Still Love You" ship. The image is from NASA TV.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft is seen on the rocket during the sunrise at the Space Force Base in California. The image is from Bill Ingalls/NASA.
The DART rocket is ready to launch in November of 2021. The image is from NASA/Bill Ingalls.
The DART is seen inside a room before it flies. NASA/JohnsHopkins APL/ Ed Whitman
The company's drone ship, "Of course I Still Love You," was stationed in the Pacific Ocean when the Falcon 9 booster came back to Earth. The 95th time that a rocket booster has been recovered was when it landed at sea.
DART is going to conduct a planetary defense test. The mission will use a technique to alter the asteroid's position. The space rock will be smashed into to change direction. The mission teams want to shorten DART's flight around Dimorphos by several minutes.
An artist's depiction of a DART craft. Steve Gribben is a NASA/JohnsHopkins APL employee.
Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's associate administrator for the science mission directorate, said during a news conference on Monday that the crash was intentional. We're trying to learn how to ignore a threat.
Experts have told Space.com that the asteroid and its moonlet are not in any danger of making their way to Earth.
Amy Mainzer, the principal investigator of NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-fieldInfrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) mission, told Space that the asteroid system has no chance of impacting the Earth.
Mainzer said it's an incredibly unlikely scenario. There is a chance that one day there could be an asteroid that poses a serious danger to Earth.
This test will show NASA how a technique called a kinetic impact technique can be used against an asteroid. If a large asteroid were to be identified in the future, NASA could theoretically send a DART to smash it into it and push it away from us.
There is no known threat of such an asteroid. Scientists have only classified about 40% of the objects near Earth.
According to a DART Observations Working Group Lead, the vast majority of near-Earth asteroids are as large as the space rock that wiped out Earth's large dinosaurs millions of years ago. There are many smaller space rocks that have not been identified.
Time is the key aspect of defending planet Earth.
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