NASA probe to smash into asteroids next week in test mission for future threats to Earth

The American space agency NASA has built a spacecraft that is intended to intentionally crash into a small asteroid called Dimorphos. Though the asteroid poses no threat to Earth, it was chosen to prove that dangerous oncoming rocks can be deflected by intentionally slamming something into them, according to a report by Sky news.

On September 26, the Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) spacecraft will batter a ram into an asteroid not far from Earth. The aim of the project is to shield the planet from possible asteroid impacts Fox Weather.com said.

The space agency shared a post on Twitter on Wednesday, saying: “On the scenic route. As our DART mission heads for its intended impact with Dimorphos, an asteroid moon that poses no threat to Earth, the spacecraft’s imaging sensor captured an image of Jupiter and its four largest moons.”

On the scenic route. 📸

As our #DARTMission Cruising toward its deliberate impact with Dimorphos, an asteroid moon that poses no threat to Earth, the spacecraft’s imager captured an image of Jupiter and its four largest moons. Learn more: https://t.co/l34qt7Ql1fpic.twitter.com/6eWToVmZS8

— NASA (@NASA) 09/20/2022

according to a publication The space agency’s Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical Navigation (DRACO) aboard NASA’s DART mission has snapped hundreds of photos of stars heading for their long-awaited collision with binary asteroid Didymos on September 26.

The images provide the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) team responsible for the project for NASA with the information needed to support further spacecraft testing and simulations that contributed to the spacecraft’s kinetic crash Dimorphos, the moon of Didymos.

Corresponding Space.comNancy Chabot, DART coordinator at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Research Laboratory, said in a September 12 press conference, “I just want to emphasize that the DRACO images are going to be quite spectacular.”

“You’re going to run into an asteroid that no one has ever seen before,” Chabot continued. “You’ll see things that are four inches for the final image, and then it’ll be cropped. I think that’s going to be pretty cool,” she added.