DART: The Impacts Of Slamming A Spacecraft Into An Asteroid
"The DART mission, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, is essentially our first test of a kinetic impact for planetary defense." says Cristina Thomas, assistant professor of Astronomy and Planetary Science at Northern Arizona University.
Put simply, scientists at NASA took a spacecraft and crashed it into an asteroid — hoping the little nudge, like bumper cars, would be enough to push the asteroid off course.
Today on the show, Short Wave's scientist-in-residence Regina G. Barber talks to Cristina Thomas about what it was like watching the success of the DART mission and what this means for science and planetary defense.
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