The writer is a science commentator
It was, literally, a striking achievement. In the early hours of Tuesday, a Nasa spacecraft slammed into a small asteroid 11mn km from Earth, its second-by-second odyssey into oblivion captured on camera and livestreamed to a world audience.
The impact was meant to shunt the rock, Dimorphos — one half of a two-asteroid binary system — into a slightly tighter orbit around its bigger partner, Didymos. The orbital tweak is yet to be confirmed but, if successful, it will demonstrate that, in principle at least, humans have the knowhow to deflect asteroids heading our way.
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