DART: one of NASA’s Planetary Defense Missions

NASA illustration of Dimorphos orbit of Didymous and trajectory of DART impact

DART: Double Asteroid Redirection Test, one of NASA’s planetary defense missions, is aiming for the binary, near-Earth asteroid pair Didymos which orbits Dimorphous. The actual strike to Didymos will be compared with computer modeling to discover its accuracy, and to witness the actual effect.