It has been 66 million years since an asteroid crashing into the Earth brought an end to the reign of the dinosaurs, scientists says, and they are keen to avoid a similar ending for humanity.
Dart is headed for a pair of asteroids about seven million miles from Earth. Its target is called Dimorphos, which is the smaller offspring of Didymos .Dimorphos is roughly 525 feet across and it orbits the much larger Didymos at a distance of less than a mile .
The spacecraft's navigation is designed to distinguish between the two asteroids and, in the final 50 minutes, target the smaller one."This really is about asteroid deflection, not disruption," said Nancy Chabot, a planetary scientist and mission team leader at Johns Hopkins University, which is managing the effort.Instead, the impact will dig out a crater metres in size and hurl some two million pounds of rocks and dirt into space.
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