Image Credit: Instagram/@europeanspaceagency
NASA's DART mission achieved a significant milestone by showcasing a technique for altering the trajectory of an asteroid in space through kinetic impact. In September 2022, a cost-effective spacecraft collided with asteroid Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos, changing their path in space.
Two years later, the European Space Agency's Hera mission is preparing to launch to study the same asteroid. The launch is scheduled from Cape Canaveral on October 7 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The Hera spacecraft, similar in size to a small car and weighing about 1,081 kilograms, will cover several hundred million kilometers before reaching its destination in October 2026.
The ESA's Hera mission aims to investigate the effects of NASA's DART probe impact on Dimorphos and its parent asteroid, Didymos. Previous knowledge about the DART mission was obtained from an Italian minisatellite deployed onboard and images captured prior to the impact. Other telescopes, including the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes, also played a vital role in monitoring and gathering data on the collision event.
Observations from ground-based telescopes worldwide confirmed that DART successfully altered Dimorphos' trajectory and shortened its orbital period around Didymos. The impact event left a trail thousands of kilometers in length, potentially impacting Earth's atmosphere in the future.
Hera's main objective is to study the aftermath of the impact, providing valuable insights for the scientific community and space agencies.The aim is to achieve positive outcomes and enhance models to effectively redirect asteroids away from potential collisions with Earth or space structures. Furthermore, the Hera mission is anticipated to investigate a binary asteroid system in depth. This mission signifies the initial specialized endeavor to examine asteroid pairs like Didymos and Dimorphos. Approximately 15% of all known asteroids exist as binaries, making this exploration crucial for improving scientific comprehension of asteroid characteristics and dynamics.
