The project, called AIDA (short for Asteroid Impact and
Deflection Assessment mission), plans to smash a spacecraft
traveling at 14,000 miles per hour into the smaller of the two
Didymos asteroids in 2022. (These asteroids have no chance of
hitting Earth, assured scientists at the 44th annual Lunar and
Planetary Science Conference earlier this week.) The scientists
want to see if the collision will push the smaller Didymos
asteroid off course, Space.com reported. AIDA will send two
spacecraft to the Didymos asteroids. Johns Hopkins University's
Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., is building the probe
that will do the crashing and the European Space Agency is
building a spacecraft that will observe the impact and send data
back to Earth. The scientists hope to learn what the Didymos
asteroids are made of and where asteroid debris floats after an
impact, Space.com said. And, oh, yeah – whether this crazy
asteroid deflection idea even works. Apparently there’s no time
to lose. Earlier this week at a Cong