When Can YOU See the 1st-Ever Human-Made Meteor Shower?

Astronomers talked for years about possible ways to deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Then, in 2022, they tried it. NASA’s DART spacecraft was sent straight into a distant asteroid moon, a tiny body called Dimorphos. Success! The spacecraft did nudge the asteroid slightly from its path. And there was an unintended consequence. The test blasted more than 2 million pounds (or nearly 1 million kilograms) of asteroidal rock and dust into space. And now scientists say this debris – kicked up from asteroid Dimorphos in the name of planetary defense – might create the 1st-ever human-made meteor shower. Join us at 12:15 CDT (17:15 UTC) as we bring back Michael Küppers, Project Scientist of the Hera mission, now en route to Dimorphous.