Benefits of an impact mission to 3200 Phaethon: nature of the extinct comet and artificial meteor shower

The asteroid 3200 Phaethon is suggested as a candidate for direct impact research. The object is considered to be an extinct comet and the parent of the Geminid meteor shower. One could say that this provides a possible argument for a space mission. Based on such a mission, this paper proposes to investigate the nature of the extinct comet and the additional interesting possibility of artificially generated meteor showers.

Dust trail theory can calculate the distribution of a bundle of trails and be used to show in which years artificial meteors would be expected. Results indicate that meteor showers will be seen on Earth about 200yr after the event, on 2022 April 12.