Delivery of DART Impact Ejecta to Mars and Earth: Opportunity for Meteor Observations

Abstract

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) and ESA’s Hera missions offer a unique opportunity to investigate the delivery of impact ejecta to other celestial bodies. We performed ejecta dynamical simulations using 3 million particles categorized into three size populations (10 cm, 0.5 cm, and 30 μ m) and constrained by early postimpact LICIACube observations. The main simulation explored ejecta velocities ranging from 1 to 1000 m s ^−1 , while a secondary simulation focused on faster ejecta with velocities from 1 to 2 km s ^−1 . We identified DART ejecta orbits compatible with the delivery of meteor-producing particles to Mars and Earth. Our results indicate the possibility of ejecta reaching the Mars Hill sphere in 13 yr for launch velocities around 450 m s ^−1 , which is within the observed range. Some ejecta particles launched at 770 m s ^−1 could reach Mars's vicinity in 7 yr. Faster ejecta resulted in a higher flux delivery toward Mars and particles impacting the Earth Hill sphere above 1.5 km s ^−1 . The delivery process is slightly sensitive to the initial observed cone range and driven by synodic periods. The launch locations for material delivery to Mars were predominantly north of the DART impact site, while they displayed a southwestern tendency for the Earth–Moon system. Larger particles exhibit a marginally greater likelihood of reaching Mars, while smaller particles favor delivery to Earth–Moon, although this effect is insignificant. To support observational campaigns for DART-created meteors, we provide comprehensive information on the encounter characteristics (orbital elements and radiants) and quantify the orbital decoherence degree of the released meteoroids.

Keywords

• Impact phenomena
• Ejecta
• Meteors
• Orbital evolution