hera

When NASA's DART deep space probe smashed into the asteroid Dimorphos, it didn't leave a crater. Instead, there was a splash, where the asteroid was distorted like a jelly as its entire structure shifted.

After focussing on an asteroid that was struck in 2022 by a half-tonne NASA robotic probe traveling over seven times faster than a bullet, the Hubble Space Telescope has detected a swarm of 37 boulders that were dislodged by the impact.

When ESA's Juventas CubeSat lands on Dimorphos to assess the aftermath of last year's spectacular collisions with NASA's DART spacecraft, its GRASS instrument will directly measure the asteroid's gravitational pull, which is a millionth that of the Earth.

ESA has awarded €129.4 million of funding to the planetary defense mission Hera, which, slated for launch in 2024, will observe the results of humanity’s first attempt to intentionally alter the orbit of a solar system asteroid.

ESA is asking amateur astronomers to help it plan the Hera asteroid mission scheduled to launch in less than five years. The space agency is soliciting data that will allow mission planners to identify candidate asteroids as flyby targets.