Dimorphos’ egg-like shape and craggy, boulder-dotted surface came into clear view in the last few moments before impact during the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). (Photo: AFP)NEW YORK - Four years ago, NASA purposely smashed a spacecraft into a small asteroid to see if they could deflect it — a test to prove humanity could protect Earth from threatening space rocks. The experiment pushed the moonlet asteroid Dimorphos into a smaller, faster route around its sibling Didymos — and according to new research out Friday, it also pushed the pair into a slightly different orbit around the Sun. The test on Dimorphos was never based on any actual threat to our planet. “The team’s amazingly precise measurement again validates kinetic impact as a technique for defending Earth against asteroid hazards and shows how a binary asteroid might be deflected by impacting just one member of the pair.”

Source: Bangkok Post March 07, 2026 12:21 UTC