Elon Musk: "Avenge the Dinosaurs" tweet on NASA's DART...!
The mission aims to prevent giant asteroids from wiping out life on Earth forever.
NASA missions to destroy an asteroid with a spacecraft. The experimental mission aims to prevent giant asteroids from wiping out life on Earth forever.
Although it may seem like a science fiction story, the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission is a reality. The spacecraft was launched on a SpaceX rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The mission is expected to reach 6.8 million miles (11 million km) from Earth in 2022. This is the shortest distance from Earth that both asteroids can reach.
There are 10,000 such asteroids near Earth. But none of these is likely to hit Earth in the next 100 years. However, scientists estimate that 15,000 similar space objects are yet to be discovered.
Asteroids larger than six miles are estimated to hit Earth once every 100-200 million years. One such asteroid struck the Earth 66 million years ago, causing the extinction of most species.