ESA Launches Probe to Revisit Asteroid Crime Scene
NASA Space Technology The European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft is en route to assess how NASA’s 2022 DART mission impacted the asteroid Dimorphos. DART smashed into the asteroid at a little over 6 kilometers per second, sending out a cloud of debris and slowing it slightly. Hera’s detailed post-collision survey aims to tell us just how efficient the kinetic impact was. This will inform the design of planetary defense missions, should we need to defend Earth from an asteroid threat.A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Hera lifted off from Cape Canaveral on 7 October and is now on a journey, via a flyby of Mars in 2025, to asteroid Didymos and its minute moon Dimorphos. Arrival at the binary asteroid system is scheduled for December 2026.DART impacted the 151-meter-diameter Dimophos back in 2022, reducing its...