A Liverpool engineer is part of NASA's full-scale planetary defence test which will see a £300m spacecraft fired into an asteroid 11 million kilometres from the Earth's surface.
The University of Liverpool's space engineering expert Dr Stefania Soldini is a member of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Investigation Team. She is mapping out the internal structure of the asteroid which could provide vital information for planetary defence.
While this asteroid – named Dimorphos – poses no threat to Earth, the aim of the mission is to demonstrate that dangerous incoming rocks can be deflected by deliberately smashing into them.
