by Planetary defense aims to identify any asteroids on track to cause serious damage to Earth and, should such a threat arise, act to deflect the rock.
Such an impact is the only natural disaster that we can prevent, planetary defense experts often say.
But planning an asteroid deflection would be difficult today, given several outstanding questions about just how effective a maneuver would turn out to be in the real world.
So next year, planetary defense will take a big step, conducting its first experiment to determine how such a deflection might play out in reality thanks to NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, which launches later this month.
Source
Such an impact is the only natural disaster that we can prevent, planetary defense experts often say.
But planning an asteroid deflection would be difficult today, given several outstanding questions about just how effective a maneuver would turn out to be in the real world.
So next year, planetary defense will take a big step, conducting its first experiment to determine how such a deflection might play out in reality thanks to NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, which launches later this month.
Source
