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

72 pointsposted 3 days ago
by rbanffy

13 Comments

comandillos

3 days ago

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

autuni

2 days 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.

shevy-java

3 days 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

3 days 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

3 days ago

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

rbanffy

3 days ago

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