In 2022, NASA sent a spacecraft to crash into a tiny asteroid named Dimorphos. The mission, called DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), was meant to test whether hitting an asteroid could change its path and help protect Earth from potential space threats.

Dimorphos, along with its bigger asteroid buddy Didymos, doesn’t pose any danger to Earth. But it was a perfect test subject because it's similar in size to asteroids that could one day be a threat.

When NASA's spacecraft collid...