In the first-of-its kind, save-the-world experiment, NASA is about to clobber a small, harmless asteroid millions of miles away. A spacecraft named Dart will zero in on the asteroid Monday, intent on slamming it head-on at 14,000 mph (22,500 kph). The impact should be just enough to nudge the asteroid into a slightly tighter orbit around its companion space rock -- demonstrating that if a killer asteroid ever heads our way, we'd stand a fighting chance of diverting it. "This is stuff of science-fiction books and really corny episodes of "StarTrek" from when I was a kid, and now it's real," NASA program scientist Tom Statler said Thursday. Cameras and telescopes will watch the crash, but it will take days or even weeks to find out if it actually changed the orbit.

U.S. Space Force officials swear in first recruits for the defense branch on'Fox & amp; Friends.' CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A NASA spacecraft is stuffed with so much asteroid rubble from this week's grab that it's jammed open and precious particles are drifting away in space, scientists said Friday. Scientists announced the news three days after the spacecraft named Osiris-Rex briefly touched asteroid Bennu, NASA's first attempt at such a mission. The mission's lead scientist, Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, said Tuesday's operation 200 million miles away collected far more material than expected for return to Earth -- in the hundreds of grams. The sample container on the end of the robot arm penetrated so deeply into the asteroid and with such force, however, that rocks got sucked in and became wedged around the rim of the lid. In this image taken from video released by NASA, the Osiris-Rex spacecraft touches the surface of asteroid Bennu on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2020.

Cape Canaveral, Florida – A NASA spacecraft is stuffed with so much asteroid rubble from this week's grab that it's jammed open and precious particles are drifting away in space, scientists said Friday. Scientists announced the news three days after the spacecraft named Osiris-Rex briefly touched asteroid Bennu, NASA's first attempt at such a mission. The mission's lead scientist, Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, said Tuesday's operation 200 million miles away collected far more material than expected for return to Earth – in the hundreds of grams. The sample container on the end of the robot arm penetrated so deeply into the asteroid and with such force, however, that rocks got sucked in and became wedged around the rim of the lid. Scientists estimate the sampler pressed as much as 19 inches (48 centimeters) into the rough, crumbly, black terrain.

A NASA spacecraft is stuffed with so much asteroid rubble from this week's grab that it's jammed open and precious particles are drifting away in space, scientists said Friday. Scientists announced the news three days after the spacecraft named Osiris-Rex briefly touched asteroid Bennu 200 million miles away. The mission's lead scientist, Dante Lauretta, said Tuesday's operation collected far more material than expected for return to Earth -- in the hundreds of grams. The sample container on the end of the robot arm penetrated so deeply into the asteroid and with such force, however, that rocks got sucked in and became wedged around the rim of the lid. The team was scrambling to put the sample container into the return capsule as early as Tuesday -- much sooner than originally planned -- for the long trip home.

Mars is about to get its first U.S. visitor in years: a three-legged, one-armed geologist to dig deep and listen for quakes. NASA's InSight makes its grand entrance through the rose-tinted Martian skies on Monday, after a six-month, 300 million-mile (480 million-kilometer) journey. It will be the first American spacecraft to land since the Curiosity rover in 2012 and the first dedicated to exploring underground. The illustration shows the InSight lander drilling into the surface of Mars. InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, is scheduled to arrive at the planet on Monday, Nov. 26 NASA is going with a tried-and-true method to get this mechanical miner to the surface of the red planet. Engine firings will slow its final descent and the spacecraft will plop down on its rigid legs, mimicking the landings of earlier successful missions.