The team posits that the collision produced a field of rocky ejecta that could reach Earth within 10 years.
The research iscurrently hostedon the preprint server arXiv and is set to publish in The Planetary Science Journal.
The DART team wasa winnerof the 2023 Gizmodo Science Fair for this superlative accomplishment in planetary defense.
The asteroid Dimorphos seen two seconds before impact by the DART mission.Image: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab
About 40 space boulderswere visiblein the vicinity of Dimorphos shortly after DART impacted the asteroid nearly two years ago.
But as the recent study shows, just deflecting the asteroid may be half the battle.
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