Impact of NASA's DART Project on Asteroid Could Trigger History's First Man-Made Meteor Shower

Link Between NASA's DART Collision and Meteor Showers

The DART mission is one of NASA’s initiatives to protect Earth against potential threats approaching from space, and with this aim, it targeted the asteroid Dimorphos in 2022. Although the asteroid did not pose any immediate risk to Earth, it was chosen because its size was similar to other asteroids that might come close to Earth in the future. Following the operation, studies suggested that NASA's DART mission against the asteroid could have triggered the first meteor showers caused by humans by directing tiny fragments from these space rocks towards Earth.

NASA's DART Mission

DART, which is an abbreviation for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, was a NASA initiative designed to study whether a high-velocity spacecraft collision with an asteroid could alter its path, and Dimorphos was targeted as part of this mission. The spacecraft was launched on November 24, 2021, and it struck the asteroid 10 months later, on September 26, 2022, at a speed of 6.1 kilometers per second. The impact of the collision was sufficient to change the orbit period of the asteroid, according to abc7 .

Nasa’s Way of Mitigating Threats

Knewz.com noted that 66 million years ago, an asteroid hit Earth in what is now Mexico, leading to the extinction of 75% of the creatures on the planet. The impact led to an extreme drop in temperatures and triggered earthquakes as well as tsunamis. As scientists continued to study space, they also explored ways to prevent future asteroid collisions with Earth. Several asteroids posed a potential risk, including Bennu, 29075 (1950 DA), 2023 TL4, 2007 FT3, and 1979 XB, as per Live Science . Experiments like the DART mission were designed to prevent asteroids from coming too close to Earth.

Risk of Meteor Showers

The study found that if Dimorphos debris had been ejected at 1,118 miles per hour (500 meters per second), some particles could have reached Mars. Smaller debris, moving faster at 3,579 miles per hour (1,600 meters per second), might have reached Earth. Given the uncertainty, researchers said that the fastest particles could have arrived on Earth in less than 10 years. Eloy Peña Asensio, the lead study author, told CNN via email, "The resulting meteor shower would have been easily identifiable on Earth, as it would not have coincided with any known meteor showers. These meteors would have been slow-moving, with peak activity expected in May, and primarily visible from the southern hemisphere, seemingly originating from near the Indus constellation." Particles could also have come out of near-Earth asteroids like Phaethon, which caused the Geminid meteor shower in mid-December.

Other Vital NASA Missions

Apart from DART mission, NASA had other ways of protecting Earth and learning more about space, including the Voyager Probes, the Hubble Space Telescope, Mars Rovers (Curiosity and Perseverance), the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the Chandra X-ray Observatory, OSIRIS-REx, and the Artemis Program, as reported by NASA . Each of these missions significantly advanced our knowledge of the universe and equopped NASA to anticipate risks from asteroids to preemptively alter their path.