Scientists in both the United States and Europe are reportedly moving ahead with plans to intentionally crash a spacecraft into a huge nearby asteroid in 2022 in order to study the inside of the space rock.

Yahoo! reported that the aggressive Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment Mission (AIDA) is set to begin in 2019 and will involve the usage of two spacecrafts - one that's being built by American scientists and the other constructed by the European Space Agency.

The respective voyage is expected to take three years in order to reach the asteroid Didymos and its companion. Since the latter has no chance of impacting the Earth, it's been chosen as an ideal target for the mission, scientists said during a presentation on March 19 at the 44th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.

The Didymos asteroid is described as a binary asteroid system consisting of two separate space rocks stuck together by the forces of gravity. The main asteroid is said to measure at 2,625 feet (800 meters) across. It's orbited by a smaller asteroid that's roughly 490 feet (150 meters).

The Didymos setup is a target of intrigue for the AIDA mission because it will allow scientists to take their first look at a binary space rock system while also giving them new insights into ways to deflect dangerous asteroids that could be harmful to the Earth.

"Binary systems are quite common. This will be our first rendezvous with a binary system," said Andy Rivkin, a scientist at John Hopkins' Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., who is involved with the United States' portion of the project.

In 2022, the Didymos asteroids is slated to be an estimated 6.8 million miles from the Earth, during what's considered a close approach, which is the reason AIDA scientists have selected the mission for that year.

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