The European Space Agency launches a mission to study an asteroid redirected by NASA.
Image Credit: Instagram/@europeanspaceagency NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART mission, achieved a significant feat by demonstrating a method of asteroid deflection. This was accompli...
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Caption: Image Source - Instagram/@europeanspaceagency The DART mission by NASA made history by demonstrating asteroid deflection through kinetic impact, altering the motion of asteroid Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos in September 2022. Two years later, ESA's Hera mission is launching to study the same asteroid, scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral on October 7 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, reaching its destination in October 2026. The Hera spacecraft, comparable in size to a small car and weighing about 1,081 kilograms, will investigate the impact of NASA's DART probe and its effect on the double asteroid. Data from the DART mission, including images captured before impact, provided crucial insights into asteroid properties, augmented by observations from the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes (JWST). Collaboration among ground-based telescopes affirmed DART's successful deflection of Dimorphos and noted a decrease in its orbital period post-impact. Hera aims to reveal the aftermath of the impact, offering valuable insights for the scientific community and space agencies.The aim is to achieve successful outcomes and enhance models for efficiently diverting asteroids away from potential collisions with Earth or space structures. Moreover, the Hera mission aims to thoroughly investigate a binary asteroid system, marking the initial dedicated mission focused on studying asteroid pairs like Didymos and Dimorphos. Approximately 15% of known asteroids exist as binaries, making this expedition crucial for advancing scientists' comprehension of asteroid characteristics and dynamics.