The Hera mission, which is run by the European Space Agency, is a follow-on from Nasa’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) project. Dimorphos i

Spacecraft launches towards asteroid knocked off course by NASA

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2024-10-07 19:30:10

The Hera mission, which is run by the European Space Agency, is a follow-on from Nasa’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) project.

Dimorphos is a small moon 160m-wide that orbits an asteroid close to Earth called Didymos in something called a binary asteroid system.

In 2022 Nasa said it successfully changed Dimorphos’s course by crashing a probe into it. It altered the rock’s path by a few metres, according to Nasa’s scientists.

The asteroid was not on course to hit Earth, but it was a test to see whether space agencies could do it when there is genuine risk.

“We need to understand what are the physical properties of these asteroids? What are they made of? Are they blocks of rock? Are they made of sand inside?” says Naomi Murdoch, a scientist involved with the European Space Agency mission.

That should help scientists understand the best way to attempt to intercept other asteroids, which can be many different sizes and shapes, in the future.