NASA Deflects Asteroid, But Debris Is Heading Toward Earth

© DART/NASA

In 2021 NASA launched the DART mission. When leaving Earth, this probe had one objective: to approach the asteroid pair Dimorphos and Didymos. Mission accomplished in September 2022, one year after its launch. The probe ends its race at full speed in one of the two asteroids . The impact is so violent that it manages to deflect the asteroid.

NASA announced the results of this mission in early October. It puffed out its chest and assured that this DART program was “the first demonstration of planetary defense.” If in the future, an asteroid is heading straight for us, we have a solution to make it leave its initial trajectory.

Some side effects

Mission Dart © NASA

If the mission was unanimously praised by the scientific community. But a recent study, published in The Planetary Science Journal, provides new details on the aftermath of DART. Scientists have notably studied the trajectory of the asteroid debris.

By hurtling towards Dimorphos, the DART probe created a real cloud of rock, which is now floating in space. According to Eloy Peña Asensio, lead author of this study, the new trajectory of these rocks could well cross paths with Earth in a few years.

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In other words, the NASA DART mission, designed to prevent asteroids from hurtling towards Earth, could bring pieces of asteroids towards Earth. A height of irony that does not really worry scientists.

Minimal risks

As the scientists clearly state in their study, the risks associated with these new debris are minimal. Initially, the calculation of their trajectory may still evolve, and we do not know if these small pieces of rock will actually end up on Earth.

Eloy Peña Asensio explains that, even if these rocks end up on Earth, they will not pose a threat to human life. The scientist is very clear on this point. According to him, it is “impossible” that a piece of rock from Dimorphos “reaches the surface of the Earth”. The high-speed crossing of the atmosphere could well be fatal to it.

A new shower of shooting stars

The scientist instead believes that these debris will continue on their way, periodically passing close to Earth or Mars. By entering the upper layers of the atmosphere, they could create shooting stars. Eloy Peña Asensio believes that these ” shooting star showers “ could be visible periodically (every year or more) for another hundred years.

Eloy Peña Asensio's scientific study is available in the source just below.

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