NASA says DART spacecraft successfully alters asteroid’s path

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft prior to impact at the Didymos binary asteroid system shown in this undated illustration handout [File: NASA handout/Johns Hopkins/Reuters]

NASA says it has succeeded in deflecting an asteroid in a historic 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 asteroid Dimorphos on September 26, pushing it into a smaller, faster orbit around its big brother Didymos, NASA chief Bill Nelson said.