Today is the first test of humanity’s nascent planetary defense system. Like Armageddon, except scientists are the heroes.
NASA will hit an asteroid with a spacecraft to change its course : NPR
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NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is scheduled to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid to test our ability to nudge potentially dangerous near-Earth objects into safer trajectories. That is excellent, and we can watch it.
How to Livestream NASA Smashing an Asteroid to Test Planetary Defense Plan
The impact day broadcast of the actual test will start on Monday, September 26 at 6 p.m. EDT, which you can watch on NASA TV, a livestream on NASA’s YouTube channel.
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What will happen and how will we know?
Ground-based telescopes are key to DART asteroid mission success | Space
On Monday (Sept. 26), the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft will slam into a small space rock called Dimorphos — on purpose, at a staggering 4 miles (6.6 kilometers) per second. The exercise comes in the name of planetary defense, which aims to protect human civilization from any large asteroid that may be on a collision course. For the mission to succeed, scientists need to measure exactly how much the orbit of Dimorphos around its larger companion, Didymos, speeds up. And the DART spacecraft won’t be in any shape to make that measurement itself, so mission personnel are relying on ground-based telescopes to track the aftermath of impact.
If this trial run works, terrific, but even failure would better prepare us to defend Earth.
Si vis pacem, para [asteroides].
— Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus (with minor paraphrasing)
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J.R. Johnson 
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