The NASA DART mission has completed its journey to collide into an asteroid. The car size space craft zeroed in on asteroid Dimorphos, which is the moonlet for asteroid Didymos, and hit it just after 7:15 pm ET. Everything worked as expected with breathtaking photos received showing it hit it’s target.

Images courtesy of NASA Dart Impact project – live replay

The next steps are to determine how much the asteroid’s orbit was altered. Once determined, scientists should be able to understand what is necessary to build a planetary defense system against potential space objects coming towards Earth.

American ingenuity and exceptionalism are on full display.