(Photo:CTIO/NOIRLab/SOAR/NSF/AURA/T.

In preparation for that day, NASA has been strategizing how to deflect incoming celestial bodies.

The results are now in: the collision shortened the period of Dimorphos' orbit.

Aftermath of DART Collision with Dimorphos Captured by SOAR Tele

Photo by the SOAR Telescope in Chile showing a side view of the streams of material from the surface of Dimorphos two days after the asteroid was impacted by NASA’s DART spacecraft. (Photo:CTIO/NOIRLab/SOAR/NSF/AURA/T. Kareta (Lowell Observatory), M. Knight (US Naval Academy))

The $330 million mission was off to a successful start.

Even a small difference of 73 seconds would be a successful mission.

The team was hoping for a 10-mute drop in the period of the orbit.

NASA’s DART Mission to Collide With an Asteroid Successfully Moved Its Orbit

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on Oct. 8, 2022, captured the debris blasted from the surface of Dimorphos 285 hours after the asteroid impacted. (Photo:NASA/ESA/STScI/Hubble)

Instead, they have since registered ashocking 32-minute dropindicating the asteroid was substantially knocked off its old path.

It dropped from 11 hours and 55 minutes to 11 hours and 23 minutes.

And it wasn’t.

NASA’s DART Mission to Collide With an Asteroid Successfully Moved Its Orbit

An image from ASI’s LICIACube show the plumes of ejecta streaming from Dimorphos after impact. (Photo:ASI/NASA/APL)

This is a huge step for planetary defense.

Shifting an oncoming asteroid’s path may be critical to human survival one day.

An image from ASIs LICIACube show the plumes of ejecta streaming from Dimorphos after impact.