On September 27 at 4:44 IST, NASA's DART mission successfully completed humanity's first planetary defence test by crashing into the asteroid Dimorphos. Because of the successful completion of the assignment, Google Search has included an easter egg. Google will show you a little animation of the DART spacecraft smashing into the search page if you type in "NASA DART."
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If you type "NASA DART" into Google's search bar, an image of the DART spacecraft will speed across the screen before crashing in an animated sequence that will distort the page's orientation.
The DART mission is an experiment in planetary defence termed the kinetic impactor method; in this scenario, a fast spaceship would intentionally crash into an asteroid that threatens Earth. The hope is that this modest prod will cause the asteroid to change its course significantly.
The asteroid Dimorphos does not constitute a danger to the Earth but scientists will utilise data from the collision to assess if the kinetic impactor technology is practical in such a situation. A kinetic collision only has to slow or speed up the asteroid's course by around 7 minutes to spare Earth from a real danger from an asteroid. This is because it takes the Earth around 7 minutes to rotate around a circle that is its own diameter. If an asteroid on a collision track with Earth could be slowed or sped up by seven minutes, it would miss the planet when their orbital paths crossed.
