Hera Closes In on Asteroid Pair to Study the Impact Damage of NASA’s DART Strike

In September 2022, a NASA spacecraft violently smashed into a tiny asteroid as a test of planetary defense. Now, a new probe is ready to check out the wreckage by rendezvousing with the space rock for a closer look.

The European Space Agency (ESA) launched its Hera mission on October 7, 2024, as a crucial follow-up to NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), a first-of-its-kind attempt to redirect the orbit of an asteroid. The small, car-sized spacecraft recently pulled off…