Asteroid Dimorphos (NASA)

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is a first step toward defending Earth from threatening space rocks.

Traveling at 14,000 miles per hour, a NASA spacecraft slammed into an asteroid on Monday evening. But the crash was intentional: NASA meant to alter the flying rock’s trajectory in space. The asteroid poses no danger to Earth, but researchers wanted to test whether this approach is feasible in case of a future threat of impact.

The agency's Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft, or DART, hit the asteroid Dimorphos at 7:14 p.m. Eastern time. At the time of the collision, Dimorphos was about 6.8 million miles from Earth...

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