What's the meaning of life, you might wonder? Well, if you ask NASA, it seems to be spending $325 million to give an unknowing asteroid named Dimorphos the surprise of its lif—uh, existence, at a whopping 14,000 miles per hour. Yours truly, Jack Superblack, contemplates joining in. Not by rocket though, just the usual existential way.
After NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) went all Rocky Balboa on poor Dimorphos, the space rock got a case of the cosmic giggles. As humanity clapped for changing its orbit by a whopping 33 minutes, little did we know, the asteroid morphed into a galactic gag.
Here's where things get wacky: Dimorphos didn't take its beat down like a typical stoic cosmic boulder. Nope, it bloated up like one of those M&M candies. If NASA's spacecraft was hoping for a normal, bowl-shaped scar, boy did it get punked.
This chuckle-worthy scenario was not just a result of some interstellar slapstick, but also thanks to Dimorphos being more of a space-sandcastle than a solid rock. It reacted to DART's smooch like a blob of gelatin—elastic and laughably fluidic.
Ultimately, while this space debris got a makeover, I sit here pondering over my next existential punchline. If I go out, at least I'll know I won't be the only one transformed by an impact. Here's a dark one for you to close: Why don't spaceships make good friends? Because they leave you floating, even in the afterlife. Alone. How utterly, morbidly hysterical.
Based on the original article "NASA’s Crash Into an Asteroid May Have Altered Its Shape".
