When NASA smashed the asteroid Dimorphos with the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft in 2022 on purpose, it was seen as a technological triumph because it demonstrated that humans can redirect a space rock that poses a threat to Earth.

That’s all good, but that event also had serious consequences: debris from the asteroid may be headed back to Earth in the first-ever artificial meteor shower, according to researchers in Spain and Italy.

After performing an in-depth analysis of the impact DART made on Dimorphos and the millions of the resulting fragments, the researchers concluded in a preprint paper that’s been accepted into The Planetary Science Journal that many of the small chunks from the crash will reach Mars and Earth — though importantly, they won’t pose any danger.

“If these ejected Dimorphos fragments reach Earth, they will not pose any risk,” Polytechnic Institute of Milan, Italy aerospace engineer and astrophysicist and study lead author Eloy Peña-Asensio  told Universe Today. “Their small size and high speed will cause them to disintegrate in the atmosphere, creating a beautiful luminous streak in the sky.”

With the relief that the DART mission was successful and that any fragments that reach Earth could be nothing, what are the chances of a real galactic threat hitting our planet and obliterating life?

Despite breathless panicky news articles, many astronomers say it’s an unlikely event because large asteroids rarely hit Earth.

Then again, dinosaurs once roamed the planet. About 66 million years ago, a large space rock smashed off the coast of Mexico, setting off an infamous mass extinction event.

That’s why NASA isn’t taking any chances. When DART collided with Dimorphos, it reshaped the asteroid and altered its orbit.

It was never going to hit Earth, but it was a useful exercise that showed that an “Armageddon”-style Earth-saving mission would be possible.

Hopefully, we’ll never have to worry about pulling it off to save the world.

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