The spacecraft NASA deliberately crashed into an asteroid last month succeeded in nudging the rocky moonlet from its natural path into a faster orbit, marking the first time humanity has altered the motion of a celestial body, the U.S. space agency announced on Tuesday.
The $330 million proof-of-concept mission, which was seven years in development, also represented the world's first test of a planetary defense system designed to prevent a potential doomsday meteorite collision with Earth.
