How does NASA's DART mission work to protect Earth from potentially hazardous asteroids?

NASA's DART mission represents a groundbreaking planetary defense system that successfully demonstrated humanity's ability to alter an asteroid's trajectory. The mission involved deliberately crashing a spacecraft into Dimorphos, an asteroid located 7 million miles from Earth, effectively pushing it into a slightly different orbit. This critical first test proves that we can potentially redirect future asteroids that pose a threat to Earth, marking a significant advancement in our planetary defense capabilities and asteroid monitoring strategies.