The world's first planetary defence technology demonstration, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), successfully impacted its asteroid target on Monday after spending 10 months in space. This was the agency's first attempt to move an asteroid in orbit. At 7:14 p.m. EDT, the successful impact was announced by mission control at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland.

DART's collision with the asteroid Dimorphos illustrates a workable mitigation approach for defending the globe from an Earth-bound asteroid or comet, should one be identified, as part of NASA's wider planetary defence strategy.

At 7:14 p.m. EDT, mission control at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, declared the impact to have been successful.

DART's collision with the asteroid Dimorphos provides evidence of a workable mitigation strategy for defending the planet from an Earth-bound asteroid or comet, should one be discovered. This mitigation strategy is part of NASA's overall planetary defence strategy. 

DART focused on the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, a tiny rock with a diameter of only 530 feet (160 metres). It revolves around the bigger Didymos, a 2,560-foot (780-meter) asteroid. There is no danger to Earth from either asteroid.

The mission's successful one-way flight demonstrated that NASA can steer a spacecraft to kinetically contact an asteroid in order to divert it.

The study team will now use ground-based telescopes to observe Dimorphos in order to verify that the asteroid's orbit around Didymos was altered by the impact of DART. One of the main goals of the full-scale test is to precisely measure how much the asteroid was deflected. Scientists anticipate that the impact will reduce Dimorphos' orbit by about 1%, or roughly 10 minutes.

According to Lindley Johnson, NASA's Planetary Defense Officer, 'DART's achievement gives a significant contribution to the fundamental toolset we must have to protect Earth from a deadly asteroid collision.' This shows that we are no longer helpless in the face of natural disasters of this nature. A DART successor might be what we need to rescue the day when combined with improved abilities to speed up detecting the remaining population of dangerous asteroids by our next Planetary Defense mission, the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor.

An international team is utilising dozens of telescopes positioned all around the world and in space to examine the asteroid system because the pair of asteroids is only 7 million miles (11 million kilometres) from Earth.

To ascertain how successfully DART diverted the asteroid, they will describe the ejecta created and precisely measure the orbital movement of Dimorphos during the ensuing weeks. The findings will aid in validating and enhancing the scientific computer models that are essential for estimating how well this technology would deflect asteroids.

According to APL Director Ralph Semmel, 'This first-of-its-kind mission required extraordinary preparation and precision, and the crew exceeded expectations on all counts.' 'DART-based capabilities could one day be utilised to redirect the trajectory of an asteroid to defend our planet and maintain life on Earth as we know it,' the technological demonstration's very amazing success stated.