Expert supporting historic NASA mission explains what’s next for DART

SANTA MARIA, Calif. – NASA's first flight mission for planetary defense, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base last November.

On Monday, DART intentionally slammed into an asteroid in humanity’s first test of planetary defense.

This mission aimed to test and validate a method to protect Earth in case of an asteroid impact threat.

According to NASA, DART showed "that a spacecraft can autonomously navigate to a target asteroid and intentionally collide with it – a method of deflection called kinetic impact."

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