NASA DART asteroid mission spacecraft, illustration

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Illustration of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft. The mission will attempt to move the binary near-Earth asteroid Didymos by crashing into it. It will be an experiment to see if the Earth might be protected against an asteroid collision by changing an asteroid's orbit. The lens for the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO) that the spacecraft will use to help guide it to the asteroid's centre is uncovered. DART is scheduled for launch on the 24th November 2021.

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Size: 2700px × 3300px
Location:
Photo credit: © NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

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