A NASA spacecraft rammed an asteroid at blistering speed Monday in an unprecedented dress rehearsal for the day a killer rock menaces Earth.
The galactic grand slam occurred at a harmless asteroid 7 million miles away, with the spacecraft named Dart plowing into the small space rock at 14,000 mph. Scientists expected the impact to carve out a crater, hurl streams of rocks and dirt into space and, most importantly, alter the asteroid’s orbit.Telescopes around the world and in space aimed at the same point in the sky to capture the spectacle.
The pair have been orbiting the sun for eons without threatening Earth, making them ideal save-the-world test candidates. “Woo hoo,” exclaimed Johns Hopkins mission systems engineer Elena Adams. “We’re seeing Dimorphos, so wonderful, wonderful.” The impact should pare 10 minutes off that, but telescopes will need anywhere from a few days to nearly a month to verify the new orbit. The anticipated orbital shift of 1% might not sound like much, scientists noted. But they stressed it would amount to a significant change over years.
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