Hollywood makes movies about asteroids destroying Earth. NASA may soon be able to protect Earth. Its new spacecraft (DART) could change an asteroid's direction so that it doesn't hit Earth. DART crashed into the centre of the asteroid at 24,000 kph. We will find out in a few weeks if the asteroid's direction changed.

DART is the first of many "planetary protection missions". NASA joked about the death of the dinosaurs. It wants "a better chance than the dinosaurs had 65 million years ago". All the dinosaurs could do was to "look up and say, 'Oh asteroid'". NASA said we could protect ourselves from a dangerous asteroid.