NASA’s DART spacecraft zooming at 15,000 mph will smash into an asteroid

(The AEGIS Alliance) – A spacecraft from NASA which has devoted the bulk of a year preparing to strike its intended target, an asteroid, will ultimately accomplish this on Monday at virtually 15,000 miles per hour, the agency claimed in a press release.

This coming week’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, which is referred to as DART, is expected to smash into its target at about 7:14 p.m. EST on Monday and also is going to function as “the world’s first mission to test technology for defending Earth against potential asteroid or comet hazards.”

The asteroid named Dimorphos which is the spacecraft’s intended target is 525 feet in width and “poses no threat to Earth,” NASA mentioned.

“The test will show a spacecraft can autonomously navigate to a target asteroid and intentionally collide with it to change the asteroid’s motion in a way that can be measured using ground-based telescopes,” NASA pointed out in its statement, taking note that the test “will provide important data to help better prepare for an asteroid that might pose an impact hazard to Earth, should one ever be discovered.”

Those considering observing the historical feat, or even a part of it, may view NASA’s Livestream viewing on Monday starting at 6 p.m. EST, accessible to the general public on NASA’s YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

Featured Image Description: This illustration provided by Johns Hopkins APL and NASA shows NASA’s DART probe, foreground right, as well as Italian Space Agency’s (ASI) LICIACube, bottom right, at the Didymos system prior to impact with the asteroid Dimorphos, left. DART is anticipated to zero in on the asteroid Monday, September 26, 2022, intent on knocking it head-on at 14,000 miles per hour. The impact needs to be only sufficient enough to push the asteroid into a somewhat tighter orbit around its partner space rock. (Steve Gribben/AP)

Kyle James Lee – The AEGIS Alliance – This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.