NASA’s Race to Stop Asteroids

Space looks calm from Earth. But it’s not. NASA just detected something moving

through space at thousands of miles per hour — and it’s not a planet. These are called

near-Earth objects. Massive asteroids that pass frighteningly close to our planet. One impact is all

it takes. The dinosaur extinction? That was one asteroid. NASA uses a system called planetary

defense to track these objects. Powerful telescopes scan the sky every single night.

In 2022, NASA tested something unbelievable. They crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid.

Not to destroy it — but to change its path. And it worked.

This mission, called DART, proved that humans can actually protect Earth from space