A NASA spacecraft successfully slammed into an asteroid on Monday evening, testing technology that could be used in the future to protect Earth.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft hit the asteroid at 14,000 miles per hour, in a test to see if DART could knock it off its path. NASA is looking for ways to defend the planet from asteroids and smaller objects hurtling through space, which are "far more numerous, and although they would not set off mass extinctions, they can unleash more energy than a nuclear bomb," The New York Times writes.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Scattered Spider: who are the hackers linked to M&S and Co-op cyberattacks?The Explainer 'Decentralised and adaptive', its mainly English-speaking members operate like an 'organised criminal network'
-
The best birdwatching spots in the UKThe Week Recommends Grab your binoculars to spot puffins, oystercatchers and chiffchaffs
-
'Making memories': the scourge of modern parenting?In The Spotlight Meghan Markle sends her children emails of each day's 'moments' but is constant 'memory-making' just another burden for parents to bear?
-
Sea lion proves animals can keep a beatspeed read A sea lion named Ronan beat a group of college students in a rhythmic dance-off, says new study
-
Humans heal much slower than other mammalsSpeed Read Slower healing may have been an evolutionary trade-off when we shed fur for sweat glands
-
Novel 'bone collector' caterpillar wears its preySpeed Read Hawaiian scientists discover a carnivorous caterpillar that decorates its shell with the body parts of dead insects
-
How to see the Lyrid meteor showerThe explainer A nice time to look to the skies
-
Scientists find hint of alien life on distant worldSpeed Read NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has detected a possible signature of life on planet K2-18b
-
Full moon calendar: dates and times for every full moon this yearIn depth When to see the lunar phenomenon every month
-
Katy Perry, Gayle King visit space on Bezos rocketSpeed Read Six well-known women went into lower orbit for 11 minutes
-
Scientists map miles of wiring in mouse brainSpeed Read Researchers have created the 'largest and most detailed wiring diagram of a mammalian brain to date,' said Nature
