Debris from the asteroid that hit NASA could be headed toward Earth within a decade

On September 26, 2022, a pot executed Dart mission to shipwreck in Dimorphos asteroid and show that it can be converted Potentially dangerous items Those who are heading to landDespite their success, debris They will finally arrive. blue planet and Mars In about a decade.

Dimorphos remains may be headed to Earth!

In a Studying Posted on August 7 and covered by The universe todayAn international team of scientists has discovered how Dart mission It also represents an opportunity to observe how debris from objects might one day reach Earth. land and Mars In the form of Meteorites.

“After running a series of dynamic simulations, they concluded that the material ejected by the asteroid could reach Mars and the Earth-Moon system within a decade.”

The universe today

the Particles They are ejected at speeds of less than 500 m/s and can reach Mars In some 13 yearsWhile those ejected at speeds greater than 1.5 km/s can reach Earth in only a short period of time. Seven years.

A decade to see the wreckage of the DART mission?

Some particles may reach Earth and Mars In approx. A decade Or more, depending on how fast they’re traveling after impact, experts say.

Simulations also indicate that it could take up to 30 years Before noticing any of these projectiles in land.

However, these faster particles are expected to be too small to be produced. Visible meteorsAccording to the first observations, according to Dr. Eloy Peña Asensiostudy author

“However, continued meteor observation campaigns will be crucial in determining whether DART has created a new (and man-made) meteor shower: the Binarys.”

Dr. Eloy Peña Asensio, author of the study

If Dimorphos debris reaches Earth, will it pose a danger?

If these fragments reach land, It will not pose any danger.Its small size and high speed will cause it to disintegrate in Atmospherecreating a luminous trail in the sky, according to Asensio.

study Dimorphos and It turned “It allowed us to analyze the direction, speed and time of year that the asteroid debris will arrive, which will allow us to clearly identify where it is.”biform”.

It turned It also provided an opportunity to model how debris from impacts might one day reach the Earth’s surface. land and other bodies Solar System.

It should be noted that this impact experiment was Controlled by It allows the study of properties. collision object“It’s a very interesting idea,” Michael Coopers, co-author of the article, told Universe Today.

How and who did this research?

The research team was led by Dr. Eloy Peña AsensioResearch Associate at the Deep Space Astrodynamics Research and Technology (DART) group at the Politecnico di Milano.

He was joined by colleagues from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ​​the Institute of Space Sciences (Ice-CSIS), part of the Spanish National Research Council, and the Institute for Space Studies of Catalonia. (Eek) and the European Space Agency (who).

• The paper detailing their findings recently appeared online and has been accepted for publication by Journal of Planetary Science.

For your study, Pena Asensio He and his colleagues relied on data obtained by the Light Italian CubeSat for imaging asteroids (LICIACube), which accompanied the mission. Dart mission And witnessed the kinetic impact test.

This data allowed the team to determine the initial conditions for the evictionIncluding their paths and speeds.

The team then used supercomputers at the Naval Aid and Information Facility (NAIF) of the a pot To simulate what would happen with an ejection. These simulations tracked 3 million particles produced by the mission’s impact. It turned with Dimorphos.