ESA's Hera images Didymos from 60km revealing DART scars
ESA's Hera spacecraft has snapped its first close-up image of the Didymos asteroid system from about 60km away, revealing boulders, craters, and grooves, likely scars from NASA's DART mission that slammed into Dimorphos in 2022.
Principal investigator Patrick Michel described seeing these never-before-seen features as like "This feels like looking at a whole new world."
Hera will study Dimorphos orbital change
ESA's Hera spacecraft launched in October 2024 as a follow-up to NASA's DART to figure out if we could actually defend Earth from dangerous asteroids.
Over the next six months, Hera will closely study how DART changed Dimorphos's orbit and what that means for future planetary defense plans.
Basically, it's real-life asteroid deflection science, and we're all watching history unfold.