The man-made meteor shower is likely to be visible around May 2037. (Representational)
Rocky debris from NASA's asteroid deflection mission is hurtling towards Earth and is expected to create the human-made meteor shower known as the Dimorphids within the next 13 years, scientists have predicted. According to CNN, the US space agency crashed a spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos in 2022 in the first planetary defence experiment aimed at finding ways to protect humanity from an extinction-level event. The impact released a storm of boulders, debris and other small particles some of which could now be a course to collide with our planet.
The man-made meteor shower is likely to be visible around May 2037, the Telegraph reported. Separately, CNN said that the meteor showers could continue to arrive intermittently and periodically for at least the next 100 years.
"We identified ejecta orbits compatible with the delivery of meteor-producing particles to both Mars and Earth. Our results indicate the possibility of ejecta reaching the gravitational field of Mars in 13 years for launch velocities around 450m/s, while faster ejecta launched at 770 m/s could reach its vicinity in just seven years," said Dr Eloy Pena-Asensio, the study lead author, of the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology at the Polytechnic University of Milan.
"In the coming decades, meteor observation campaigns will be crucial in determining whether fragments of Dimorphos, resulting from the impact, will reach our planet. If this happens, we will witness the first human-made meteor shower," he explained.
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Notably, the asteroid deflection mission was the first attempt to alter the movement of a celestial body and prove that it is possible to change the course of any future doomsday space rock threatening to obliterate Earth. The historic test involved sending a $325 million spacecraft called Dart (Double asteroid redirection test) on a 10-month kamikaze journey.
Dimorphos, which was about the size of one of the Great Pyramids of Giza, was chosen because it posed little threat to Earth.
Early studies suggest that the Dart mission was a success. However, it was estimated that about 1,000 tons of debris were blasted away, enough to fill 60 train carriages.
Scientists said only smaller particles are likely to reach Earth because these are the ones that would have been launched at the highest speeds.
Notably, meteor showers usually occur when Earth passes through the debris field of a comet