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Can mankind deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth?
人类能使小行星在与地球相撞时发生偏转吗？
NASA has inched one step closer to finding out after its DART spacecraft successfully slammed into a distant asteroid at hypersonic speed.
美国国家航空航天局（NASA）距离找到这个问题的答案又近了一步，他们的DART航天器于日前成功地以高超音速撞击了一颗遥远的小行星。
DART, or the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, is the world's first-ever test of a planetary defense system.
DART（双小行星重定向测试）是世界上首次对行星防御系统进行的测试任务。
Humanity's first attempt to alter the motion of an asteroid or any celestial body.
这也是人类首次尝试改变小行星或任何天体的运动。
"Three... Two... One..."
“3... 2... 1...”
NASA workers just outside Washington D.C. cheered as they witnessed the bullseye hit, second-by-second images of the spacecraft crashing into the asteroid 'moonlet' known as Dimorphos, ten months after DART first launched.
在DART首次发射10个月后，该航天器成功命中了这颗名为“迪莫弗斯”的小行星，而以秒为单位的撞击图像，使得华盛顿特区外的NASA工作人员欢呼了起来，
The mission was devised to determine whether a spacecraft can nudge an asteroid off course through sheer kinetic force.
此次任务旨在确定宇宙飞船能否通过纯粹的动能推动小行星偏离轨道。
Even just a small tilt from millions of miles away and years in advance could potentially keep our planet out of harm's way.
即使只是在数百万英里外和几光年外的一点小偏离，也有可能使我们的星球免受伤害。
But while NASA's spacecraft successfully hit its intended target, whether it did anything to change its trajectory will not be known until further observations in October.
不过，尽管NASA的航天器成功地击中了预定目标，但该小行星是否改变了轨道，还要等到10月份的进一步观察才能知道。
Neither Dimorphos or its parent asteroid Didymos present any actual threat to Earth.
无论是“迪莫弗斯”还是它的母行星“迪迪莫斯”，都没有对地球构成任何实际威胁。
Both are tiny compared with the cataclysmic Chicxulub asteroid that struck Earth some 66 million years ago,
与大约6600万年前撞击地球的灾难性的希克苏鲁伯小行星相比，这两颗小行星都微不足道，
wiping out about three-quarters of the world's plant and animal species including the dinosaurs.
当时的希克苏鲁伯小行星，使得包括恐龙在内的世界上四分之三的动植物物种灭绝。
Of all the near-Earth asteroids that NASA tracks, none are known to pose a foreseeable hazard.
在NASA追踪的所有近地小行星中，没有一颗会造成可预见的危险。
However, NASA estimates there are many more near-Earth asteroids that remain undetected.
但根据NASA的预估，还有更多的近地小行星目前尚未被探测到。
