NASA’s asteroid impact test will watch

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NASA’s asteroid impact test will watch

NASA is about to crash a spacecraft 7 million miles from Earth, and who wouldn't want to watch that happen?

The DART test will ram a tiny moon of the asteroid Didymos on Monday, in the first test of a planetary asteroid defense system. If all goes well, the spacecraft's kinetic impact it is travelling at more than 14,000 mph will knock the 560 foot-wide moonlet, named Dimorphos, off course, much like a shot when playing pool. It's the first big test of a defense system that could one day avoid catastrophes by deflecting asteroids that are on a collision course with Earth.

NASA will begin its live coverage Monday at 6 p.m. Eastern on its social-media accounts and YouTube page. The impact is expected to be at 7: 14 p.m. Eastern, with a port-mortem media briefing expected at 8 p.m. The spacecraft will send images up to the point of impact. The LICIACube satellite will take pictures of the impact and debris plume and send them back to Earth in a couple of days. Even if the test fails, the asteroid is far enough away from Earth and poses no threat of hitting us. The mission of DART was launched in November 2021. The last guidance from scientists came Sunday, and after that it will autonomously guide itself to its collision with the asteroid moonlet, according to NASA.