Once the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer couldn’t survey widely anymore, NASA scientists switched gears and began using the spacecraft for planetary defense.
Articles on Near-Earth objects
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Crashing the 1,340-pound DART probe into the small moonlet orbiting the asteroid Didymos should redirect its trajectory – and could be a model for how to save Earth in the future.
NASA has only mapped 40% of the potentially dangerous asteroids that could crash into Earth. New projects will boost that number, and upcoming missions will test tech that could prevent collisions.
