On September 26th, 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroids Redirect Test (DART) successfully collided with Dimorphos, a small moonlet orbiting the larger asteroid Didymos, demonstrating the kinetic impact method as a strategy for deflecting potentially hazardous asteroids.

By October 2026, the European Space Agency’s Hera mission will examine the impact site to confirm the effectiveness of this planetary defense approach.

However, while this method could divert asteroids away from Earth, it might also create debris capable of reaching Earth or other celestial bodies.

A recent study led by Dr. Eloy Peña-Asensio, along with an international team of scientists, used data from the LICIACube, which accompanied the DART mission, to simulate the trajectories of the debris.

Their findings suggest that asteroid ejecta could potentially reach Mars and the Earth-Moon system within a decade, Science Alert has reported.

The research, conducted with the help of NASA’s supercomputers, has been accepted for publication in The Planetary Science Journal.

Written by B.C. Begley