NASA Stands Up to Asteroid Bullying

Many TV shows and movies have plots involving deadly asteroids plummeting straight for Earth. Us humans here on Earth have been as helpless as the dinosaurs. Now, we're finally doing something about it and standing up to these Near Earth Objects.

Earlier today NASA DART completed a nearly-year-long mission to deliberately slam a satellite into an asteroid. The goal? To see if we can create significant change in the object and protect the planet. Andrew Tarantola at Engadget has more of our planetary defenses.

Results and data from the collision are still coming in but NASA ground control confirms that the DART impact vehicle has intercepted the target asteroid.

"It's been a successful completion of the first part of the world's first planetary defense test," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said after the impact. "I believe it's going to teach us how one day to protect our own planet from an incoming asteroid. We are showing that planetary defense is a global endeavor and it is very possible to save our planet."

Engadget

What strikes me as the most interesting of all this news is the fact that we've not done something like this before. The idea of defending the planet from near-misses seems simple, but now we are actually doing something about it. NASA DART is a simple idea that I would guess requires extremely complex math & engineering. The success is great. This way, it won't be foreign objects from space wiping out humanity. We'll handle that on our own.