The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), built and managed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, is humanity’s first attempt to change the motion of an asteroid in space by intentionally crashing a spacecraft into it. DART’s target asteroid is not a threat to Earth but is the perfect testing ground to see if this method of asteroid deflection – known as the kinetic impactor technique – would be a viable way to protect our planet if an asteroid on a collision course with Earth were discovered in the future.
DART will impact its target asteroid, Dimorphos, a small moonlet orbiting a larger asteroid by the name of Didymos, at 7:14 p.m. EDT on Monday, September 26.
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/dart/resources
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