How to watch NASA crash a spacecraft into an asteroid on Monday

An illustration of DART headed towards Dimorphos | NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben

Update 9/26 8:08PM ET: The DART spacecraft smashed into an asteroid! Original post continues below.

When NASA smashes a spacecraft into an asteroid on Monday, people on Earth will get an extremely close look at the action.

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is headed for its final destination, the surface of an asteroid called Dimorphos, which it will crash into at speeds of over 14,000 miles per hour. Researchers are hoping that the collision will change the asteroid’s orbit, speeding it up just a tiny bit.

Neither Dimorphos, nor its larger companion, Didymos, pose any danger to Earth, but the experiment is designed to test whether or not a similar impact could make a difference if scientists ever discovered an asteroid...

Continue reading…