Asteroid Hitting Earth

The asteroid was initially spotted by amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov on Saturday and reported to the Minor Planet Center (MPC)

The mission is NASA's first demonstration of the agency's planetary-defense initiative to protect Earth from the possibility of a hazardous collision with an asteroid

Dimorphos doesn't pose any threat to Earth, but the DART mission is the first physical test in space of one of NASA's primary tenets: planetary defense.

Nasa estimates the asteroid's relative speed at around 8.16 kilometres per second

NASA's Near-Earth Object (NEO) web-site at the Centre for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) reveals that they will be fast approaching the Earth this month

The reason for this jump in the impact rate is not known but it could be related to large collisions taking place more than 290 million years ago

Scientific researchers trying to find evidence of how asteroid impacts occur at regular intervals

The warning comes ahead of the upcoming Asteroid Day on 30 June

Earth has been hit by objects in the past, with devastating effects

Czech scientists say asteroids may pose a real threat of collision with Earth