![]() If time allows, the best tactic could be to nudge the menacing asteroid out of our way, like Dart. Not by blowing up an asteroid as Willis’ character did - that would be a last, last-minute resort - or by begging government leaders to take action as DiCaprio’s character did in vain. “These threats are real, and what makes this time special, is we can do something about it,” Zurbuchen said. Fewer than half of the 460-foot (140-meter) objects have been confirmed, with millions of smaller but still-dangerous objects zooming around. What’s worrisome, though, are the unknown threats. Otherwise, “it would be like the movies, right?” said NASA’s science mission chief Thomas Zurbuchen. Mission control at the Johns Hopkins Applied. The good news is that the coast seems clear for the next century, with no known threats. After 10 months flying in space, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) the world’s first planetary defense technology demonstration successfully impacted its asteroid target on Monday, the agency’s first attempt to move an asteroid in space. NASA’s planetary defense officer, Lindley Johnson, figures he’s seen them all since 1979′s “Meteor,” his personal favorite “since Sean Connery played me.” While some of the sci-fi films are more accurate than others, he noted, entertainment always wins out. ![]() ![]() The investigation team will now observe Dimorphos using ground-based telescopes to confirm that DART’s impact altered the asteroid’s orbit around Didymos. Learning more about the asteroid Psyche could tell us more about the origins of our solar system. Hollywood has churned out dozens of killer-space-rock movies over the decades, including 1998′s “Armageddon” which brought Bruce Willis to Cape Canaveral for filming, and last year's “Don’t Look Up” with Leonardo DiCaprio leading an all-star cast. The mission’s one-way trip confirmed NASA can successfully navigate a spacecraft to intentionally collide with an asteroid to deflect it, a technique known as kinetic impact. Here are six things to know about the mission: 1. By then, the SpaceX-designed rocket had notched more than 100 successful launches, but for members of the DART mission, the event was anything but ordinary: Nestled within the rocket’s nose cone.
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