Spacecraft Launched to Study Asteroid for Saving Earth From Potential Collisions

This image provided by NASA shows the asteroid Dimorphos, captured by NASA’s DART mission just two seconds before the spacecraft struck its surface, on Sept. 26, 2022. NASA/Johns Hopkins APL via AP

A planetary defense spacecraft was launched on Monday to gather data on the “kinetic impact” of a planned crash into an asteroid to determine if there is a way to thwart the path of threatening rocks bound for Earth.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera craft left for a two-year trip to Dimorphos, which orbits Didymos—Greek for twin—an asteroid five times larger than its moonlet.

The twin asteroids are harmless to Earth, which is partially why they were chosen as a cosmic laboratory for deflection tests.

The ESA said the asteroid target is unique among the more than 1.3 million documented asteroids in the solar system because it’s “the only body to have had its orbit shifted by human action” to “solve lingering mysteries associated with its deflection.”

In 2022, NASA purposely crashed its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft into the 500-foot asteroid.

In the experiment’s second phase, the ESA’s Hera will spend six months with the asteroid to determine whether DART made any impact on the moonlet’s mass, shape, composition, and orbit.

“The more detail we can glean, the better, as it may be important for planning a future deflection mission should one be needed,” said University of Maryland astronomer Derek Richardson.

Ignacio Tanco, a flight director, said the car-size Hera could be in danger from debris scattered into the surrounding area from the crash.

“We don’t really know very well the environment in which we are going to operate,” Tanco said. “But that’s the whole point of the mission: to go there and find out.”

Dimorphos and Didymos orbit the sun between Jupiter and Mars in what is called the main asteroid belt.

The asteroids become classified as near-Earth objects when they are knocked out of the belt into close proximity to the blue planet.

NASA has identified 36,000 near-Earth objects, 2,400 of which are considered potential hazards.

Hera, which was carried off by SpaceX’s Falcon rocket, will pass Mars in 2025 for a boost of gravity before reaching Dimorphos at the end of 2026.

Two CubeSats, small nanosatellites, will break off from Hera to land on the moonlet for a closer examination.

Scientists are seeking insights into the asteroids, including whether Dimorphos was formed from rock from Didymos. CubeSats radar data is expected to answer this question.

Project manager Ian Carnelli called the space mission a $400 million “crash scene investigation” intended to go “back to the scene of the crime” to gather “scientific and technical information.”

Hera’s mission scientist Michael Kueppers said the twin rocks will become “the best-studied asteroids in history.”

As a result, he said, Earth will be more secure “from the threat of incoming asteroids.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.