Asteroids Will Crash Mars Because Of DART's 'Kill Himself' Mission

JAKARTA - The United States Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) deployed a Double Asteroid Diversion Test (DART) mission in 2022. This mission succeeded in changing the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos.

This asteroid does not actually pose a threat to Earth, it is not even known whether it will hit Earth or not in the future. However, NASA deliberately crashed the DART plane into Dimorphos to learn how to protect Earth.

Apparently, this successful NASA mission has directed Dimorphos to Mars. Although not happening in the near future, Dimorphos debris is expected to hit Mars four times in a period of 15,000 years.

The impact of changing the trajectory of these asteroids was discovered by several astronomers in the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics. They observed 37 chunks of large asteroids using the Hubble Space Telescope.

From these observations, there are no asteroid chunks that point to Earth. However, four chunks are quite close to the Red Planet and two of them will crash into themselves within 6,000 years.

Quoted from Sciencealert, Mars does not have a good atmospheric cushion. Therefore, according to scientists' calculations, the debris of Dimorphos will fall straight down intact and create a small crater with a width of 300 meters.

Apart from creating new holes, Mars will not have any bad effects. The planet, which is targeted as a place to live for humans, is already filled with rocks and craters so that collisions from Dimorphos will not make dramatic changes.