“You would want to avoid contact with surface rocks while gliding however, as they are likely to be sharp enough to snag your spacesuit, having never been smoothed by water or wind,” says Naomi. “Adding to the challenge, your weight would shift by about 10-20% depending on where you are on the surface, because of tidal forces from the Didymos parent asteroid.”

Navigation would present another difficulty, comments Patrick: “It is likely Dimorphos was tidally locked before DART’s impact, but is now probably either rotating or ‘librating’ – wobbling – as it orbits Didymos.” Either way, this means the local sky above an exploring astronaut would probably be shifting all the time, and disorientation might become a risk.