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Dimorphos in sight: Europe's Hera probe gets its 1st look at battered space rock (photo)
"With this image, the smaller Dimorphos asteroid becomes visible for the first time."
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Europe's Hera planetary defense spacecraft is closing in on the binary asteroid system targeted by NASA's DART deflection test, and can now tell the two rocky bodies apart.
Hera is nearing the end of its voyage to the Didymos asteroid system, having launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in October 2024. The spacecraft snapped the image of Didymos and the smaller Dimorphos on Oct. 18 from a distance of 795 miles (1280 kilometers) from the pair, which are currently about 122 million miles (197 million km) from Earth.
"With this image, the smaller Dimorphos asteroid becomes visible for the first time," Michael Kueppers, Hera project scientist at the European Space Agency (ESA), said in a statement. "Before this acquisition, the spacecraft was still resolving the Didymos system as a single dot. But now, even though Dimorphos is made up of only around one pixel in this initial image, it is clearly well separated from its parent body."
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) smashed into Dimorphos in September 2022, changing the asteroid's orbit in a pioneering planetary defense demonstration. Hera's job is to survey the damage and refine our understanding of the impact, as well as the asteroids themselves.
Hera performed braking maneuvers earlier in October to slow its approach and put it on course to rendezvous with the binary system. The spacecraft is designed to make follow-up observations of the asteroids using 12 payloads, providing new insights that will prove valuable for planetary defense efforts. The mission also carries a pair of cubesats for a closer look and eventual landing on the 495-foot-wide (151 meters) Dimorphos.
For now, Hera is continuing its approach and preparing for arrival, with a big reveal expected to occur later this month.
"Our views will grow much sharper as Hera comes closer," said ESA's mission manager Ian Carnelli. "We will unveil the first detailed images of Dimorphos — the first object in the solar system to have had its orbit measurably shifted by human action — on 25 November."
Andrew is a freelance space journalist with a focus on reporting on China's rapidly growing space sector. He began writing for Space.com in 2019 and writes for SpaceNews, IEEE Spectrum, National Geographic, Sky & Telescope, New Scientist and others. Andrew first caught the space bug when, as a youngster, he saw Voyager images of other worlds in our solar system for the first time. Away from space, Andrew enjoys trail running in the forests of Finland. You can follow him on Twitter @AJ_FI.