YES! It is like a sci-fi movie plot but for real!
Illustration of NASA's DART spacecraft prior to impact with the Didymos binary system. (Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab)
In just a few days, you can watch live as NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) deliberately crashes into a faraway asteroid.
DART 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.
Schedule for the event
Monday, Sept. 26
4:30 p.m. (approximately) – NASA’s SpaceX Crew-5 Flight Readiness Review media teleconference
5:30 p.m. – Watch a live feed from NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft (Streaming on NASA TV's media channel)
6 p.m. – Live coverage begins for NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impact with the asteroid Dimorphos (Impact targeted for 7:14 p.m.)
8 p.m. – NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) post-impact press briefing
