Spacecraft Launched to Study Asteroid for Saving Earth From Potential Collisions

NASA has identified 36,000 near-Earth objects, 2,400 of which are considered potential hazards.

This image provided by NASA shows the asteroid Dimorphos, captured by NASA’s DART mission just two seconds before the spacecraft struck its surface, on Sept. 26, 2022. NASA/Johns Hopkins APL via AP

A planetary defense spacecraft was launched on Monday to gather data on the “kinetic impact” of a planned crash into an asteroid to determine if there is a way to thwart the path of threatening rocks bound for Earth.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera craft left for a two-year trip to Dimorphos, which orbits Didymos—Greek for twin—an asteroid five times larger than its moonlet.