The European Space Agency is sending a probe to get a closer look at the asteroid Dimorphos, which had its orbit altered by NASA’s DART mission in 2022
By Matthew Sparkes
4 October 2024
The European Space Agency’s Hera mission will study the asteroids Dimorphos aided by two CubeSats called Juventas and Milani
ESA/ScienceOffice.org
Two years after a NASA spacecraft slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos, another mission to map the space rock is about to launch. The data it collects will refine Earth’s planetary defences against asteroid threats, say researchers.
In 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft collided with the asteroid Dimorphos at 6.6 kilometres per second as it orbited its parent asteroid Didymos.
Read more
This mind-blowing map shows Earth’s position within the vast universe
Advertisement
The mission was an attempt to show that bodies on a collision course with our planet could be redirected, and subsequent observations from Earth showed that it had successfully changed Dimorphos’s orbit.
Now, the European Space Agency (ESA) is preparing to launch its Hera probe to get a closer look at exactly how it was affected. Hera is around the size of a small car, weighing 1081 kilograms when fully fuelled. It will launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 7 October aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and do a flyby of Mars in March next year on the way to the asteroid – but it won’t reach its final destination until October 2026.