HERA, A PROBE launched last year, took images yesterday of Mars and the planet’s most mysterious moon Deimos. 

The European Space Agency (ESA) has sent Hera, on a mission to visit the first asteroid to have had its orbit altered by human action. According to the ESA, its flyby of Mars yesterday illustrated its “first use of its payload for scientific purposes beyond Earth and the Moon.” The Hera mission for planetary defence was launched 7 October 2024.

Hera was able to image the red planet’s moon Deimos from as close as 1,000km. The probe surveyed the less-seen side of the tidally locked moon.

Measuring 12.4km across, dust-covered Deimos might actually be a leftover of a giant impact on Mars or else a captured asteroid.

Deimos crossing Mars The European Space Agency The European Space Agency

Hera came as close as 5,000km from Mars. The planet’s gravity shifted the spacecraft’s trajectory towards its final destination – asteroids Dimorphos and the larger Didymos asteroid it orbits around.

This gravitational manoeuvre shortened the journey to the asteroid by many months and saved a “substantial” amount of fuel.

By gathering close-up data about the Dimorphos asteroid, which was impacted by NASA’s DART spacecraft in 2022, Hera will help turn asteroid deflection into a well understood and potentially repeatable technique.

The twin asteroid destinations of Hera are many times smaller than the city-sized Deimos moon. Didymos is 780 m across and Dimorphos is just 151 m across. 

Last view of Hera spacecraft

 ESA’s Hera mission scientist Michael Kueppers said, “These instruments have been tried out before, during Hera’s departure from Earth, but this is the first time that we have employed them on a small distant moon for which we still lack knowledge – demonstrating their excellent performance in the process!”