NASA DART Mission Will Make the First Man-Made Meteor Shower Possible

NASA's DART Hits Bullseye on Asteroid Moonlet Dimorphos In terms of protection from an impact from a potentially hazardous space object, this was a major step forward and experimented with methods to change the trajectory of those objects.

DIMORPHIDS: THE WORLD'S INITIAL MAN-MADE METEORS

• Launched in 2021, the DART mission sought to nudge an asteroid into a new path via "kinetic impact" in order to defend Earth against further threats.
• The mission led to Dimorphos' shortening his 11.92-hour orbit around the larger asteroid Didymos by about 33 minutes, the first known purposeful change in a small body's trajectory.
• The deformation of Dimorphos due to DART produced a 'triaxial ellipsoid' shape, which in turn points to major geological transformations.
• It was selected because it is a near-Earth asteroid and of similar size to other potential impact threats.
• The DART mission could show us how to deflect asteroids, which are an example of technology useful for planetary defense.