NASA's DART spacecraft hits target asteroid in first planetary defence test

Undated handout artist impression issued by Nasa of its Double Asteroid Redirection Test or Dart. Nasa has successfully crashed a spacecraft into a small asteroid as part of a planetary protection test mission.  Nasa/PA Wire

NASA's DART spacecraft successfully slammed into a distant asteroid at hypersonic speed on Monday in the world's first test of a planetary defence system, designed to prevent a potential doomsday meteorite collision with Earth.

Humanity's first attempt to alter the motion of an asteroid or any celestial body played out in a NASA webcast from the mission operations center outside Washington, D.C., 10 months after DART was launched.