Throwing a DART into Space

Imagine you are the near-earth asteroid Didymos, going through space and making chin music with Dimorphos about why neither of you is named after a false god. Suddenly, bam! Your moon takes it on the chin from a human space vehicle that was designed to crash into it. To add insult to injury, the orbit of Dimorphos was noticeably changed. 

Actually, this rude behavior was planned by NASA to see if it was possible to deflect a menacing asteroid headed toward Earth.

Dimorphos, NASA / Johns Hopkins APL (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents)

Yes, there have been big meteorite and asteroid strikes on Earth in the past, and there's a passel of 'stroids out yonder. One of significant size striking could be devastating to life here. Scientists wondered if they could make an impact (heh!) and possibly redirect this one through the DART project. The Italian Space Agency spiced things up by furnishing a spacecraft that rode along on DART, detaching a few days before the collision, then filmed it.

While the experiment showed some promise for future projects, this child is not thrilled. The asteroid and its moon were tracked, the project was developed for a long time, and Dimorphos was not an impressive target. I reckon they had to start somewhere, though. What does this mean for people who believe the Bible and God's promises? Take a look:

Out of the 1.1 million known asteroids, the vast majority are found in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, where they present no threat to Earth. However, there are asteroids and comets that orbit much closer to us. Since 1988, 29,000 near-earth objects (NEOs)4 have been identified and catalogued by NASA. Because there are far fewer large ones than small, larger impacts are much less likely.

Roughly every 10 years, a 10-metre (35-ft) diameter meteorite with killing potential hits Earth. These rarely cause a problem, though, because most fall into, or explode over, the sea or the desert; people inhabit a relatively small area of Earth’s surface. An exception to this was on 15 February 2013, when a 20 m (66 ft), 11,000-tonne meteor exploded over the Russian city Chelyabinsk, with an energy 30 times greater than the Hiroshima nuclear bomb. Fortunately, the explosion was 15 miles (24 km) high, so it killed no one, even though it wounded over 1,200 and shattered glass.

You can read all of this smashing article by venturing to "Impact! — NASA probe successfully hits asteroid."