Hera to measure Dimorphos space rock that Dart probe deliberately hit
The European Space Agency’s Hera mission will survey the impact site and make detailed measurements of the battered rock, Dimorphos, to help researchers hone their strategies for defending Earth should a wayward asteroid ever threaten the planet in the future.
“It’s a series of breathtaking moments,” Paolo Martino, the lead engineer and deputy project manager said of the mission from ESA’s base in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. “The first one is surviving the launch.” Named after the Greek goddess of marriage, women and family, Hera will report back on the state of Dimorphos, a 150-metre-wide asteroid that orbits a larger, 780-metre-wide parent body called Didymos. In September 2022, Nasa’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test probeAs a first test of Earth’s planetary defences, the Dart mission was declared a success.
When Dart thumped into Dimorphos, the momentum of the probe and the force from debris ejected from the asteroid knocked 33 minutes off its orbital period around Didymos. The collisionHera’s instruments will record the precise size, shape, mass and orbit of Dimorphos so researchers can work out how efficiently momentum was transferred from the Dart probe to the space rock and what state the asteroid was left in.
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