HERE’S HOW THAT SPACE PROGRAM IS COMING ALONG: ‘Swarm of boulders’ in space shows the gory aftermath of NASA’s asteroid-smashing DART mission.

On Sept. 26, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft disintegrated as it smashed into the asteroid Dimorphos, which is 7 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth, successfully changing the asteroid’s trajectory.

Now, by using Hubble to study the impact, astronomers have found that DART’s roughly 14,540 mph (23,400 km/h) impact on the asteroid produced a “swarm of boulders.” The rocks, which range from 3 to 22 feet (0.9 to 6.7 meters) in diameter, were most likely shaken loose from the asteroid’s surface during the impact. The researchers published their findings July 20 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“This tells us for the first time what happens when you hit an asteroid and see material coming out up to the largest sizes,” David Jewitt, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a statement. “The boulders are some of the faintest things ever imaged inside our solar system.”

One small step for planetary defense, one giant leap for Hubble imaging.