Four new studies confirm that NASA's DART mission, which crashed a rocket into the asteroid Dimorphos, changed the asteroid's trajectory and could potentially save Earth one day, given enough time to prepare.
Roughly five months after intentionally crashing a rocket into a distant asteroid, NASA has some good news: The mission was a smashing success, and similar methods could prevent Earth from being obliterated by planet-killing space rocks in the future, according to four new studies published in the journal Nature.
NASA launched the Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission in late November 2021, after five years of planning. The goal was to test a theory of planetary defense called the"kinetic impactor" technique — basically, altering an asteroid's trajectory by crashing a rocket into it at high speed. Now, four new studies published March 1 confirm that the mission was even more successful than NASA engineers initially predicted — and that the kinetic impactor technique is indeed a viable method for protecting Earth from potentially deadly asteroids in the future.
The study also notes that intercepting an asteroid roughly the size of Dimorphos is possible without an advance reconnaissance mission, as long as scientists have several years — or preferably several decades — to prepare for the asteroid's approach.
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