This Asteroid Tracker Just Snapped Mars's Deimos Moon | Watch Live On YouTube

European Space Agency's Hera mission, designed for planetary defence purposes is up and running and now, for the first time it has made use of its payload for scientific purposes beyond Earth and the Moon. ESA activated three instruments on Hera and imaged the surface of Mars and in the bargain snapped its moon Deimos, astonishingly sailing past across the face of the Red Planet. Hera was launched on 7 October 2024.

Hera mission is to visit the first asteroid ever (Dimorphos asteroid) to have had its orbit altered by human action when NASA’s DART spacecraft slammed into it in 2022. Hera's job is to help turn asteroid deflection into a potentially repeatable technique.

Hera’s 12 March flyby of Mars brought it as close as 5000 km. It was so close that the planet’s gravity shifted the spacecraft’s trajectory towards its final destination, Dimorphos and the larger Didymos asteroid it orbits around. This was done deliberately to get what is known as a "gravity assist" from Mars as it shortened Hera's journey time by many months and saved fuel.

Hera snapped Deimos' images from as close as 1000 km away. Measuring 12.4 km across, dust-covered Deimos might actually be a leftover of a giant impact on Mars or else a captured asteroid.

As far as size goes, Didymos is 780 m across and Dimorphos just 151 m as opposed to city-sized Deimos moon.

Watch live on YouTube Below: Hera's Mars flyby

“In 21 months the spacecraft will reach our target asteroids, and start our crash site investigation of the only object in our Solar System to have had its orbit measurably altered by human action,” said ESA Hera mission manager Ian Carnelli.