More than two million pounds of space debris has accumulated since the conclusion of Nasa’s Double Asteroids Redirect Test (DART) mission, which raises the probability of a prolonged meteor shower. Strange context, since this occurs when the DART spacecraft hits Dimorphos, which is the moonlet of the asteroid in an epic planetary defense experiment.
DART mission and impact
The Nasa-led DART mission achieved its primary objective of not just deviating the path of the asteroid probe Dimorphos but also significantly changing its form. “It’s not just a simple sediment, “Daika” also evolved as it is composed of a mixture of sediment and matrix where ‘mud and rocks’ appear together, the former in ‘eyes’ embedded in the latter,’” Margaret Nghiem of Nasa JPL explains.
Potential meteor shower
According to a recent work conducted by Cornell University, the debris from the DART collision could strike the earth or Mars in the next 10 to 30 years, and there is a possibility that it would produce a rather weak artificial meteor shower for about a century. Some of the particles might reach the Martian atmosphere and cause ‘sight’ meteors by burning upon reentry, centrons or tumble-axes Eloy Peña Asensio from Polytechnic University of Milan in Italy said stressing the intermittent behavior of such particles. Such particles will be visible, though, probably, not bigger than grains of sand to the size of a large smartphone, and are expected to be harmless to the earth’s surface.
Debris impact and visibility
The collision generated rocky debris to the tune of more than two million pounds with some of them travelling at a velocity of 1,118 miles per hour. These fragments will not reach Earth and, if they do, “the subsequent meteor shower would be so distinct that it would not be mistaken for any known meteor shower because of the dates,” Asensio elaborated.
The meteors that are being anticipated will have low speeds with regards to their activities with May being the month of condensation and activity and sighting being primarily around the southern hemisphere near the constellation Indus. This relative meteor shower further illustrates the exceptional characteristic of the debris which is different from the conventional meteor showers in that it is of an artificial instead of a natural origin.
Ongoing research and future implications
The view that a man-made meteor shower can be seen makes space debris and its aftermath on earth and other spatial bodies imperative into the future. With the progress of space exploration central defunct space will be an issue to address. The effectiveness of the DART mission in assessing defense against planetary attack opens the way for further investigations and strategies for seeking for and dealing with potential threats of asteroid to earth.
