a quirk in the earth s rotation. it made it appear as though this asteroid was approaching much slower than it was. so that really rattled nasa and the astronomy community, and so that s part of the reason we now have the first planetary defense mission ever under way right now, the dark mission. it s going to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid in just a few months. fingers crossed we don t have another quirk, right, in the earth s orbit in the next coming hours. thank you so much. very good tuesday morning to all of you. i m jim sciutto. i m bianna golodryga. we begin with this hour with ongoing voting rights fight. senate will open debate on two key pieces of voting rights legislation this afternoon. as democrats push ahead with efforts that are likely dead on arrival.
feel stuck and need a loan? move to sofi and feel what it s like to get your money right. move to a sofi personal loan. earn $10 just for viewing your rate and get your money right. so why not smash into an asteroid on purpose? nasa has launched its first ever planetary mission, it s called the dark mission, for the dark asteroid redirection and it has
so let s all just use our imaginations, kay? just imagine me someplace festive no, no, don t make it weird. so why not smash into an asteroid on purpose? nasa has launched its first ever planetary mission, it s called the dark mission, for the dark asteroid redirection and it has nothing to do with ben aflac or drills. joining us is after the ro physicist of the american museum of natural history and welcome to the universe, a pocket-size tour, neil s, pleasure to see you as always, can you explain what this mission is trying to do? and why? well, you have to sort of
front of you. and you can redirect to some other point. and bruce willis style, blow the sucker out of the sky. in america, we re good at blowing things up but not knowing where the pieces go. just deflect. yeah. here it comes. here s the moon. there s the main asteroid. and here s the dark mission. it deploys a little camera and slams into it. that will slow it down. you said this is about the size of the statue of liberty. yeah. slows it down and it falls into lower orbit around the main asteroid. it will throw it down by half a millimeter per second. that doesn t sound like much. but that accumulates. how do they know that s going to happen? we know the mass and we know the math. it will hit more miles per