'A New Era': NASA Strikes Asteroid in Key Test of Planetary Defense

This illustration depicts NASA's Dart probe, foreground right, before impact with the asteroid Dimorphos, left. (Steve Gribben/Johns Hopkins APL/NASA via AP)

A NASA spaceship on Monday struck an asteroid seven million miles away in order to deflect its orbit, succeeding in a historic test of humanity's ability to prevent a celestial object from devastating life on Earth.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impactor hit its target, the space rock Dimorphos, at 7:14 pm Eastern Time (2314 GMT), 10 months after blasting off from California on its pioneering mission, AFP said.