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A NASA spacecraft captured on the verge of colliding with an asteroid

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NASA’s DART mission will collide with an asteroid on September 26 at 11:15 p.m. UTC.

The collision will be the first in our Solar System to deliberately and measurably alter the motion of a significant body.

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It will be the first test of a technique that could be used in the future to redirect asteroids on a collision course with Earth.

The DART mission will assess the impact of an asteroid-comet collision that occurred close to Earth on September 11.

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A CubeSat from the Italian Space Agency will follow along and photograph the collision and its aftermath.

The findings will reveal a lot about the nature of asteroids and our ability to influence their motion.

This knowledge could be used to plan planetary defence missions aimed at redirecting asteroids deemed dangerous to Earth.

The DART tests are being carried out in a very relevant and interesting size range for asteroids: those larger than 100 metres in diameter.

If DART is successful, it may pave the way for future missions to nudge asteroids out of the way of collisions with Earth.

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