--- title: "Italian Probe Will Watch as NASA Smashes Asteroid With Battering Ram" description: "NASA's asteroid-smashing Direct Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft is racing towards its celestial target, with the Italian-made LICIACube in tow." date: "2022-09-14" modified: "2022-09-14" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/italian-probe-nasa-smashes-asteroid" categories: - "NASA" - "Space" tags: - "dart" - "planetary protection" - "the digest" --- # Italian Probe Will Watch as NASA Smashes Asteroid With Battering Ram ![NASA's asteroid-smashing Direct Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft is racing towards its celestial target, with the Italian-made LICIACube in tow.]() *\Image: NASA/Futurism\* ## Guardians of the Galaxy Every hero needs a sidekick. Or, at the very least, a personal videographer. Case in point: NASA's asteroid-smashing [Direct Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft](), slated to crash into the asteroid Dimorphos on September 26, is currently racing towards its target. But it's not alone! *Space.com* [reports that]() trailing behind the doomed DART craft is a tiny Italian micro-satellite, which, equipped with two optical cameras, will transmit real-time footage of the collision for Earthbound scientists. ## Sidecar Vibes The small Italian craft, dubbed the Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids, or LICIACube, piggybacked its way into space when DART was launched late last year. But we all must fly alone eventually, and on Sunday, LICIACube was deployed from the main craft. If it's giving [big-dog-driving-the-motorcycle-with-little-dog-in-the-sidecar-energy](), we concur. Basically: DART will smash into moonlet Dimorphos, which orbits the asteroid Didymos. LICIACube, hovering closeby — but not *too* closeby — will watch what happens. "The cubesat will point its cameras toward the asteroid system," Elena Mazzotta Epifani, an astronomer at Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), told *Space.com*, "but also to DART, and will probably take some pictures of it." ## Cosmic Camcorder Hopefully, LICIACube will reveal a wealth of information about the unprecedented collision, nevermind the asteroids themselves. Very little is actually known about this asteroid system — so this little cosmic camcorder might just reveal some new, exciting truths about these and other rocks floating through our solar system. "We do not know almost anything about Dimorphos, which is too small to produce an effect disentangled from the one coming from the main body," Epifani told *Space.com*. "We presume from theoretical models on formation of binary asteroids that Dimorphos is very similar to Didymos, but we know virtually nothing about the degree of cohesion of surface materials, the size distribution of the surface debris, and so on." "Together, DART and LICIACube will analyze for the first time and with high detail the physical properties of a binary near-Earth asteroid," she continued, "allowing us to investigate its nature and have hints on its formation and evolution." Exciting stuff! One thing's for sure: [we'll be watching](). Word's still out on [Bruce Willis](), though. **READ MORE:** [NASA will slam a spacecraft into an asteroid. This tiny witness will show us what happens.]() \[*Space.com*\] **More on DART:** *[Nasa's Battering Ram Now Has Asteroid It'll Smash in Its Sights ]()* ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()