Analysis of data obtained over the past two weeks by NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) investigation team shows the spacecraft’s kinetic impact with its target asteroid, Dimorphos, successfully altered the asteroid’s orbit. This marks humanity’s first time purposely changing the motion of a celestial object and the first full-scale demonstration of asteroid deflection technology. Images such as the below helped scientists understand the orbit change resulting from DART’s impact.

Bull’s-eye: NASA’s DART craft successfully changed the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos by colliding into the rocky body two weeks ago, according to the space agency.

The test shows humanity has the capability to stop an asteroid from hitting the planet, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said in a Tuesday press conference (Opens in a new window). “If an Earth-threatening asteroid was discovered, and we can see it far enough away, this technique could be used to deflect it,” he added.

The DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) was a spacecraft about the size of a refrigerator. When it collided with Dimorphos on September 26th, it was traveling at 14,000 miles per hour, which caused a noticeable impact that telescopes and radar images were able to capture.

Humans managed to alter an asteroid’s path through space.

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) successfully moved an asteroid, space agency officials confirmed on Tuesday, October 11.

During his maiden voyage to space, “Star Trek” icon William Shatner had an awe-inspiring experience — but it wasn’t necessarily positive.

“So, I went to space,” reads a Variety-published excerpt from Shatner’s new book, “Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder.”

After describing the exhilarating launch procedure and beginning of his zero-gravity excursion, Shatner wrote that when he turned around to look into the void of space, he was shocked by the emptiness he found.

But this is only one half of the story, as metal-poor stars within the Milky Way may also have come from smaller dwarf galaxies that smashed into and merged with our galaxy throughout its life. By examining these stars’ paths through space while retaining only those that didn’t veer out into the metal-poor regions of the galaxy, the researchers were able to separate out the stars that form the ancient heart from the stars that originated in a dwarf galaxy.

This left researchers with some of the original skeleton of stars around which the Milky Way grew — a population they estimate to be between 50 million to 200 million times as massive as our own sun. As heavier stars die faster than smaller ones, the remaining stars are on average around 1.5 times lighter than the sun, according to the researchers.

“These stars make up about half of the total stellar mass once born,” Rix said. “So, about half of the stars [from the protogalaxy] survive to date.”

ABC News’ photo editors have assembled a collection of some of the most stunning images taken of outer space. A photo of aurora australis or the southern lights taken aboard the International Space Station, June 13, 2019.