Target practice in space: NASA aims to knock an asteroid off course
Hollywood comes to life Monday night, as NASA attempts to smash a small spacecraft into an asteroid nearly 7 million miles from Earth, and knock the space rock onto a new path.
It’s a mission that could someday help save the planet.
The asteroid, called Dimorphos, is not heading toward Earth. In fact, it is no threat to Earth at all. But that is why NASA is using it for target practice. If the space agency can successfully nudge Dimorphos onto a new track, it can learn crucial lessons about how to defend Earth if a more dire situation were to occur in the future.
By science fiction standards, the mission might appear a bit mundane –
