ESA's Hera Probe Spots Both Asteroids Separately for the First Time

The European Space Agency's Hera spacecraft has sent back its first image showing the Didymos–Dimorphos binary asteroid pair as two separate points of light, rather than a single blurred dot. The probe is now roughly 1,280 kilometres from the pair, which sit about 197 million kilometres from Earth. Didymos, the larger body, measures approximately 780 metres across; its moon Dimorphos is about 151 metres wide. Hera is the follow-up to NASA's 2022 DART mission, which slammed into Dimorphos and slowed its orbit by 32–33 minutes — far exceeding the 73-second minimum goal. Hera's task is to study the aftermath in detail: two small CubeSats named Milani and Juventas will be deployed for close-range work. Milani will carry out a mineralogical analysis of the DART impact site, while Juventas will use ground-penetrating radar to look roughly 100 metres beneath the surface and determine whether Dimorphos is solid rock or a loose rubble pile. ESA mission manager Ian Carnelli said the team is now "seeing through Hera's own eyes the very double asteroid system the mission was designed and built for." The first detailed close-up images of Dimorphos are expected on 25 November 2026. The mission is a joint effort by ESA, NASA, and JAXA and represents humanity's first independent verification of planetary defence technology.