NASA Kicked Asteroid Off Course in Test to Save Earth

NASA Kicked Asteroid Off Course in Test to Save Earth

NASA on Tuesday celebrated exceeding expectations during a mission to deflect a distant asteroid, in a sci-fi like test of humanity's ability to stop an incoming cosmic object from devastating life on Earth.

The fridge-sized Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impactor deliberately smashed into the moonlet asteroid Dimorphos on September 26, pushing it into a smaller, faster orbit around its big brother Didymos, NASA chief Bill Nelson announced.

That changed its orbital period by four percent, or 32 minutes -- from 11 hour 55 minutes to 11 hours 23 minutes, bettering an expectation of 10 minutes.

"At some point in the future, if we find an asteroid that is threatening to hit Earth, and would be large enough to really do some damage, thank goodness that we will have had this successful test," Nelson told AFP.

The asteroid pair loop together around our Sun every 2.1 years, and pose no threat to our planet.

But they are ideal for studying the "kinetic impact" method of planetary defense.

DART's success as a proof-of-concept has made a reality what was once science fiction -- notably films such as "Armageddon," "Deep Impact," and "Don't Look Up."

Never actually photographed before, Dimorphos, which is 530 feet (160 meters) in diameter or