‘We Have Impact’: Watch NASA Scientists Go Nuts as Spacecraft Crashes Into Asteroid

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was a smashing success as it slammed into an asteroid known as Dimorphos.

Dimorphos is actually a moonlet of a larger asteroid called Didymos, which it orbits once every 12 hours. Scientists are now waiting to see whether the collision with the moonlet will have any effect on the gravitational relationship between the two objects. Scientists hope the impact will alter the trajectory of Didymos.

Neither asteroid poses a risk to Earth, but the hope is that humans will be able to redirect any future space objects headed toward the planet.

On Monday night, NASA aired a live stream from the spacecraft, which relayed images every few seconds as it approached its target. Traveling at about 14,000 miles per hour, the craft neared the object and transmitted increasingly-detailed images of the asteroid’s surface.

On the live feed, a smaller box featuring a video feed of NASA scientists in the control room reacting in real-time was also on-screen. As the craft got closer, their cheers grew louder before they finally erupted in applause upon impact.

NASA was ordered by Congress in 2005 to locate and map the vast majority of asteroids close enough to Earth that, were they to hit our planet, could destroy a city. The agency was given 15 years to accomplish the task, which has been hampered by a lack of funding. As a result, some 15,000 asteroids are yet to be mapped.

Watch above via NASA.