ESA's Hera Will View Asteroid Scars from DART's Strike

(spectrum.ieee.org)

72 points | by rbanffy 2 days ago ago

11 comments

  • autuni a day ago ago

    I'm quite excited by planetary defense missions. While I don't think that anyone has any reason to be fearful of the constant danger of being wiped out by an asteroid, in my mind it marks a big milestone for us as a species to be able to (in not so distant future) protect ourselves from something that wiped out dinosaurs. Just feels like a mission that is not driven by global power struggles/projections, but is just a positive for everyone.

    It seems weird to think about how much more developed we are as a species, and yet so far we are still vulnerable to the same incident that ended their reign over this planet, completely out of their (and our) control.

  • comandillos 2 days ago ago

    Quite impressive this spacecraft will really orbit around a binary asteroid system using a camera-based autonomous navigation system

  • botanical a day ago ago

    From the name, I wondered how this was going to be related to HERA (it isn't), a radio telescope array in South Africa:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_Epoch_of_Reionization...

    • kennyadam 15 hours ago ago

      What else isn’t it related to?

  • shevy-java 2 days ago ago

    ESA must defend against Trump-NASA. Recently the USA threatened Europeans again if they "prevent" entry of US-Starlink and other AI slop spam working for Putin. The USA has become a security risk not only for Ukrainians but all Europans under agent Krasnov.

  • Heronsunny 2 days ago ago

    Spent time doing shape modeling from flyby imagery and the thing I'm most curious about is whether they get good enough lighting geometry on the crater rim.

    • malfist 2 days ago ago

      I am absolutely positive someone thought about illumination of the subject before they spent 356 million euros on the project.

      • rbanffy 2 days ago ago

        It's not a flyby, so I assume there will be multiple opportunities for photography under varied lighting conditions.