Why NASA and ESA are trying to crash a spaceship into an asteroid

European and American space officials have launched plans to deflect asteroids away from the Earth, in hopes of better protecting the planet and of understanding the way asteroids form and operate. Or, as Quartz puts it, “NASA and ESA are forming a super space team to prevent armageddon.” The project, called the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) Mission, was first announced in 2012. But it wasn’t until this year that officials declared a target for its studies: a near-Earth binary asteroid named 65803 Didymos.