In the first-of-its kind, save-the-world experiment, NASA is about to clobber a small, harmless asteroid millions of miles away.
A spacecraft named Dart will zero in on the asteroid on September 26, intent on slamming it head-on at 14,000 mph (22,500 kph). The impact should be just enough to nudge the asteroid into a slightly tighter orbit around its companion space rock — demonstrating that if a killer asteroid ever heads our way, we’d stand a fighting chance of diverting it.
“This is stuff of science-fiction books and really corny episodes of “StarTrek” from when I was a kid, and now it's real,” NASA program scientist Tom Statler said Thursday.
