There could be a 100-year meteor shower due to a NASA spacecraft crash.
The Dimorphids, the very first artificially created meteor shower, may have originated from rocky debris that NASA's DART spacecraft blew away from the tiny asteroid Dimorphos when it collided with it on purpose in 2022, according to a new study.
In order to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of asteroid deflection technology for planetary defense, the space agency designed the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, mission. NASA wanted to know if a spacecraft colliding with an asteroid at 13,645 miles every hour (6.1 kilometers per second) would be sufficient to alter the trajectory of a celestial object in space.
Dimorphos does not threaten Earth, nor does Didymos, the massive parent space rock it circles. Dimorphos's size is equivalent to asteroids that potentially pose a hazard to Earth, so the double-asteroid system was an ideal place to test deflection technologies. After nearly two years of monitoring the impact's aftermath with ground-based telescopes, astronomers discovered that the DART spacecraft was successful in altering Dimorphos' orbit, causing the moonlet asteroid to take 32 to 33 minutes to complete one revolution around Didymos.
However, experts also calculated that the deliberate impact produced more than 2 million pounds (almost 1 million kilograms) of rock and dust, which would fill around six or seven train carriages. It's still unclear exactly where all of that material will wind up in space. According to recent study, pieces of Dimorphos may reach Earth and Mars in the next one to three decades, and it's possible that part of the debris will rise to the red dwarf planet in as little as seven years. Within the next ten years, little debris may also find its way into Earth's atmosphere. The paper has been approved for publishing in the Planetary Science Journal.
"As they enter the Martian atmosphere, this substance might generate observable meteors, also known as shooting stars," stated Eloy Peña Asensio, the primary investigator of the study and postdoctoral researcher at the Deep-space Astrodynamics Research and Technology division at the Polytechnic University of Milan in Italy. "After the first electrons arrive on Earth or Mars, they may arrive sporadically and on occasion for the next 100 years, or at least that is how long our calculations take."
Forecasting space debris
According to Peña Asensio, none of the debris poses a threat to Earth because each person pieces are modest, ranging in size from tiny particles like sand grains to shards the size of cellphones. "They would break down in the upper atmosphere due to friction with the air at hypervelocity, an action called ablation," he explained. "A Dimorphos material cannot possibly reach the surface of Earth." However, determining the debris's velocity is a more difficult task and affects when the material could potentially reach Earth.
The spacecraft wasn't alone itself when it collided with Dimorphos. Prior to impact, LICIACube, a tiny satellite, detached from the spacecraft in order to record video of the collision and the ensuing debris cloud.
According to Peña Asensio, "this vital data has allowed and remains to enable detailed analysis of the impact debris." The study team simulated the trajectory of 3 million particles produced by the impact using LICIACube data and the supercomputing capabilities of the Consortium of University Services of Catalonia. Through computer modeling, various particle paths and velocities throughout the solar system were measured, along with potential effects of solar radiation on particle motion. According to Peña Asensio, earlier research had indicated that it was possible for Dimorphos' particles to reach Earth or Mars. However, for this current study, the simulations were limited to match post-impact data from LICIACube.
The study's findings verify that a few pieces might reach Mars if it were released from Dimorphos at a speed of 1,118 miles per hour (500 meters per second), while lower, faster-moving debris could potentially reach Earth at a speed of 3,579 miles per an hour (1,600 meters per second). Although there are still unknowns about the debris's nature, the scientists came at the conclusion that the fastest-moving particles might arrive on Earth in less than ten years. Although the Dimorphid meteor shower's likelihood of reaching Earth is low, the study's authors can't completely rule it out, according to Peña Asensio. And it would be a little, dim meteor shower if it happened.
Through email, he stated, "The ensuing meteor showers would be readily apparent on Earth, as it wouldn't be associated with any known meteor showers." "These meteors would be slow-moving, mostly visible from the southern hemisphere, apparently coming close to the Indus constellation. Peak activity is expected in May." Furthermore, the researchers' analysis revealed that Dimorphos' debris may be able to reach neighboring asteroids, even though they did not investigate this possibility in their work.
A trip to the aftermath
The crash was predicted to release debris, but Michael Küppers, a planetary scientist at the European Space Astronomy Centre and research coauthor, noted that it was impossible to predict if any material would make it to Earth or Mars before the collision. "It surprised me at first that, even though the impact occurred near Earth (approximately 11 million kilometers away), it is quicker for the impact ejecta (debris) to reach Mars than it is to reach Earth," Küppers wrote in an email. "I think the reason is that Didymos passes through Mars' orbit and remains slightly outside of Earth's orbit."
Near-Earth asteroids like Phaethon, which causes the annual Geminid meteor shower to peak in mid-December, have the ability to expel particles. According to Patrick Michel, the head of research at the National Centre for Scientific Studies in France and an astrophysicist, analyzing the particles produced by the DART collision could assist forecast when such material could reach Earth or Mars. Michel did not work on the research project. Even though it depends on modeling, which has its own difficulties, this study attempts to quantify this potential and demonstrates that it might occur, according to Michel.
According to Peña Asensio, further observations may assist researchers in fine-tuning their estimations of the debris's mass and velocity, which will be useful in estimating the projected meteor activity. The Hera expedition will carry out those observations. In order to track the effects of the DART hit, the European Space Agency mission is scheduled to launch in October and reach the asteroid system by the end of 2026. The spacecraft will investigate the composition, mass, and impact-induced alteration of Dimorphos in conjunction with two CubeSats. The amount of momentum that was transferred from the spaceship to the asteroid will also be ascertained by Hera.
"Is there a crater left behind, or was the impact so great that Dimorphos was completely reshaped?" Küppers, a project scientist for the Hera mission, questioned. We have some evidence for the latter from data collected from the ground when it falls. Hera will confirm for us. We will also see if Dimorphos (tumbling) is affected by the impact. All things considered, Michel stated that the mission will help astronomers comprehend the dynamical evolution of debris "produced by an effect in a system this complicated of dual asteroids."
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