Studies Show How Asteroid-Bashing Spacecraft Was ‘Phenomenally Successful’

Asteroid moonlet Dimorphos as seen by the DART spacecraft 11 seconds before impact in this image taken by DART’s on board DRACO imager from a distance of 68 kilometers, and released on Sept. 26, 2022. NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Handout via Reuters

WASHINGTON—NASA’s DART spacecraft slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos at a spot between two boulders during last September’s first test of a planetary defense system, sending debris hurtling into space and changing the rocky oblong-shaped object’s path a bit more than previously calculated.