DART | IAS GYAN

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About

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the first-of-its-kind, save-the-world experiment is going to destroy a small, harmless asteroid.
- The asteroid's name is Dimorphos, it is about 7 million miles (9.6 million kilometres) from Earth.
NASA's press release states that the experiment is about asteroid deflection, not disruption; this experiment isn’t going to blow up the asteroid.
DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) is the first planetary defence test mission.
- It will test the new technology to protect the earth in case an asteroid heads towards Earth.
- It has a single instrument: a camera used for navigating, targeting and chronicling the final action.
- The technology would allow a spacecraft to crash into an asteroid and change its route.
- It will be a suicide mission and the spacecraft will be destroyed in the collision with the asteroid.