Europe withdraws from anti-asteroid mission

Known as AIDA (Asteroid Deflection and Impact Assessment), the mission was to consist of two parts.
The US-led component, known as DART ( Double Asteroid Redirection Test ), was to send a small spacecraft to deliberately collide with the moon of a large asteroid known as Didymos.
Europe, meanwhile, was to launch AIM ( Asteroid Impact Mission ), a probe that would travel to the scene of the experiment where it could collect data about the impact as it happens.
Now though, European officials have