The pair of Italian astronomers found that when the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) craft rammed the 560-foot-wide asteroid Dimorphos off its course, the collision created a cloud of 37 new space boulders that is shooting toward Mars.
If one of these boulders hit the red planet, it could create a crater between 200 and 300 meters across - 656 to nearly 1,000 feet.
The astronomers warned that if NASA needs to knock a killer asteroid off its collision course with Earth in the future it will be crucial to consider where the debris from such a spectacular crash would go - lest it ends up colliding with Earth after all.
A kinetic impact means smashing one thing into another thing, and it’s one of the possible strategies NASA would use in the event of an asteroid threatening life on Earth.
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