A spacecraft designed to crash with an asteroid 11 million miles from Earth has sent back its first photograph from space.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is at present plunging through space on an Armageddon-style mission.
Its aim is to preliminary tech that could shield Earth from possibly pulverizing asteroids in the future.
The spacecraft opened its “eye” fourteen days subsequent to taking off from a base in California back in November and we can now get a glimpse of its trip.
Taken some 2million miles from Earth, the marginally grainy shot was made conceivable utilizing the DRACO telescopic camera board.
Scientists have had the option to make out around twelve stars, close to where the heavenly bodies Perseus, Aries and Taurus intersect.
However, DART isn’t because of arrive at its last objective until September 2022, so we can expect more photographs to come during its long journey.
Should the mission prove successful, it could prepare for another planetary guard system that can redirect approaching space rocks before impact.
The scheme mirrors the plot of Hollywood super hit “Armageddon” in which NASA flies a spacecraft to an asteroid to stop it hitting Earth.
DART is flying towards the twofold close Earth asteroid Didymos, which is around 740 meters (2,427 feet) across and sits between the orbits of Earth and Mars.
Yet, that is not rigorously the focal point of the mission.
All things considered, NASA’s bold battering ram will focus on a more modest asteroid – or moonlet – circling Didymos closely.
DART will crush into the space rock at 15,000 mph trying to switch its orbital direction up its host.
Later DART collides with its objective, NASA and ESA telescopes on Earth will pour over it to check whether the scheme has worked.
A tiny cubesat sent off close by the mission will gather information previously, during and later the effect.
Space experts have as of now recognized somewhere around 26,000 alleged “close Earth objects”.
An estimated 4,700 meet NASA’s grouping as “Possibly Hazardous Objects”.