DART spacecraft: asteroid crash
On September 26, 2022, NASA intentionally crashed the DART spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos to try to change the asteroid's orbit slightly. It was a test of technology that could protect Earth from potential asteroid impacts in the future. The video shows the last five minutes of images captured by DART as it approaches its target. Except for the very end, the approach is shown 10 times faster than it really occurred.
NASA/Johns Hopkins APL
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JPL/NASALearn how scientists find and track near-Earth asteroids, which are asteroids that might pass close to Earth's orbit.
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Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.This rock would take out more than just a T. rex.
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© Massachusetts Institute of Technology (A Britannica Publishing Partner)Using paintball clouds to deflect asteroids.
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Goddard Space Flight Center GSFC/NASACaptured on October 20, 2020, during the OSIRIS-REx mission's Touch-and-Go (TAG) sample collection event, this series of 82 images shows the SamCam imager's field of view as the NASA spacecraft approaches and touches down on asteroid Bennu's surface. The sampling event brought the spacecraft all the way down to sample site Nightingale, and the team on Earth received confirmation of successful touchdown at 6:08 pm Eastern Daylight Time. Preliminary data show the sampling head touched Bennu's surface for approximately five seconds, after which the spacecraft performed a back-away burn.
