NASA Kicked Asteroid Off Course in Test to Save Earth

The massive Vehicle Assembly Building where NASA’s powerful new 322-foot-tall moon rocket has been assembled for the unpiloted Artemis 1 mission, is reflected after a hard rain at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US October 28, 2021. REUTERS/Thom Baur/Files

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.