NASA spacecraft en route to smash into asteroid after launch

NASA launched a spacecraft Tuesday night on a mission to smash into an asteroid and test whether it would be possible to knock a speeding space rock off course if one were to threaten Earth.

The DART spacecraft, short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in a $330 million US project with echoes of the Bruce Willis movie Armageddon.

If all goes well, in September 2022 it will slam head-on into Dimorphos, an asteroid 160 metres across, at 24,000 km/h.

☀️ The warmth of sunshine on just-unrolled solar panels. Nothing