Asteroid deflection strategies: Researchers unveil new scenarios

How prepared are we to deflect an asteroid heading towards Earth? This question is answered by two studies just published in Nature Communications, the result of a collaboration between Politecnico di Milano, Georgia Institute of Technology and other international institutions. The research analyzes the historical results of NASA's DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission, which hit the asteroid Dimorphos on September 26, 2022, marking the first practical demonstration of planetary defense.