Bam! NASA Spacecraft Crashes Into Asteroid

A NASA spacecraft rammed an asteroid at blistering speed Monday in an unprecedented dress rehearsal for the day a killer rock menaces Earth.

The galactic slam occurred at a harmless asteroid 7 million miles (11.3 million kilometers) away, with the spacecraft named Dart plowing into the space rock at 14,000 mph (22,500 kph).

Scientists expected the impact to carve out a crater, hurl streams of rocks and dirt into space and, most importantly, alter the asteroid's orbit.

The Dart Navigation Lead, Dr. Julie Bellerose said the number one goal was to hit the asteroid: "But now number two is really measure and characterize how much ejecta we actually put out."

Telescopes around the world and in space aimed at the same point in the sky to capture the spectacle.

Though the impact was immediately obvious - Dart's radio signal abruptly ceased - it will take as long as a couple of months to determine how much the asteroid's path was changed.

The $325 million mission was the first attempt to shift the position of an asteroid or any other natural object in space.

Monday's target: a 525-foot (160-meter) asteroid named Dimorphos. It's a moonlet of Didymos, Greek for twin, a fast-spinning asteroid five times bigger that flung off the material that formed the junior partner.

The pair have been orbiting the sun for eons without threatening Earth, making them ideal save-the-world test candidates.

Launched last November, the vending machine-size Dart - short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test - navigated to its target using new technology developed by Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, the spacecraft builder and mission manager.

Dart's on-board camera, a key part of this smart navigation system, caught sight of Dimorphos barely an hour before impact.

With an image beaming back to Earth every second, Adams and other ground controllers in Laurel, Maryland, watched with growing excitement as Dimorphos loomed larger and larger in the field of view alongside its bigger companion.

Within minutes, Dimorphos was alone in the pictures; it looked like a giant gray lemon, but with boulders and rubble on the surface.

The last image froze on the screen as the radio transmission ended.

Scientists insisted Dart would not shatter Dimorphos. The spacecraftpacked a scant 1,260 pounds (570 kilograms), compared with the asteroid's 11 billion pounds (5 billion kilograms). But that should be plenty to shrink its 11-hour, 55-minute orbit around Didymos.

The impact should pare 10 minutes off that. The anticipated orbital shift of 1% might not sound like much, scientists noted. But they stressed it would amount to a significant change over years.

Planetary defense experts prefer nudging a threatening asteroid or comet out of the way, given enough lead time, rather than blowing it up and creating multiple pieces that could rain down on Earth.

Multiple impactors might be needed for big space rocks or a combination of impactors and so-called gravity tractors, not-yet-invented devices that would use their own gravity to pull an asteroid into a safer orbit.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel

Subscribe to our newest channel Quicktake Explained

Bloomberg Quicktake brings you live global news and original shows spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the stories changing your business and your world.

To watch complete coverage on Bloomberg Quicktake 24/7, visit or watch on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Fire TV and Android TV on the Bloomberg app.

Have a story to tell? Fill out this survey for a chance to have it featured on Bloomberg Quicktake

Connect with us on…

Breaking News on YouTube