Nasa is set to slam a spacecraft into an asteroid in an effort to alter its orbit.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, mission is the first attempt to understand if this strategy is realistic.
The director of the National Near Earth Objects Information Centre, Jay Tate says “this is the first step to actually trial a way of preventing near-earth object impact.”
The spacecraft is set to depart from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California tomorrow evening.