NASA spacecraft collides with asteroid in planetary defence test

An illustration of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft shortly before crashing into the Didymos binary asteroid system [NASA/Johns Hopkins/Handout via Reuters]

A NASA spacecraft has hit an asteroid in an unprecedented test designed to prevent potentially devastating collisions with Earth.

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos about 11 million kilometres (6.8 million miles) from Earth at about 23:00 GMT on Monday.