An asteroid’s moon got a name so NASA can bump it off its course
This practice deflection is a test case to protect Earth
![illustration of moonlet asteroid](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/062520_mt_asteroid-name_feat.jpg?fit=1028%2C579&ssl=1)
A moonlet asteroid newly named Dimorphos (left in this artist’s rendering) has been tapped as the target of NASA’s first asteroid deflection mission — which will involve sending a spacecraft headlong into the rock to change its trajectory through space.
NASA, Steve Gribben/Johns Hopkins APL