Nasa to crash $330m spacecraft into asteroid to see if impact can alter course

An illustration of Nasa’s Dart spacecraft approaching Dimorphos and Didymos. Photograph: Nasa/Johns Hopkins APL/EPA

In a few weeks, Nasa controllers will deliberately crash their $330m Dart robot spacecraft into an asteroid. The half-tonne probe will be travelling at more than four miles a second when it strikes its target, Dimorphos, and will be destroyed.

The aim of this kamikaze science mission is straightforward: space engineers want to learn how to deflect asteroids in case one is ever discovered on a collision course with Earth. Observations of Dart’s impact on Dimorphos’s orbit will provide crucial data about how well spacecraft can protect Earth from asteroid armageddon, they say.