NASA DART asteroid mission, illustration

---

Illustration of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission to the binary near-Earth asteroid Didymos. The mission will attempt to move the asteroid's secondary (smaller) body 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. Behind the spacecraft is the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube), which will take images and send them back to Earth as the spacecraft hits the asteroid. DART is scheduled for launch on the 24th November 2021.

---

Size: 4000px × 2285px
Location:
Photo credit: © NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: -, -earth, approaching, artwork, asteroid, asteroids, astronomical, astronomy, binary, cgi, cubesat, dart, defence, defense, didymos, digitally, dimorphos, double, earth, generated, illustration, imaging, italian, liciacube, light, mission, nasa, planet, planetary, projectile, protection, redirection, space, spacecraft, test, trajectory