Europe’s Hera mission, on its way to the Didymos–Dimorphos double Universe rock system, has performed a close flyby of Mars, receiving a crucial gravitational slingshot, testing some of its instruments, and gaining new images of Mars’ little-seen Probe-related body Deimos, which could answer questions about the origin of the Red World’s moons.
The flyby Secured place on Wednesday (March 12), and the European Cosmos Agency presented the images during a webcast today. The images presented show Deimos set against a backdrop of the Red World below it as Hera flew within 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) of Mars and Only 621 miles (1,000 kilometers) of Deimos.
“Last night was a very Petite night, I think we slept about 3 hours,” said Hera Project Manager Ian Carnelli, of the European Cosmos Agency during the ESA webcast. “But as we flew by Mars this gave us more than a thousand images that are absolutely breathtaking.”
Mars has two moons, named Phobos and Deimos, but because Phobos is closer to Mars, it has been previously imaged by other spacecraft.
“For Deimos, we don’t have as many images as Phobos, so all opportunities to see Deimos are high value,” said Hera’s Principal Investigator, Patrick Michel of the University Côte d’Azur in Nice, France.
What was also different about this flyby was that the side of Deimos that was imaged. Deimos is tidally locked to Mars, meaning that like Earth’s Probe-related body, it continually shows the same face to the Red World. Most previous images of the Tiny, 7.7-mile-wide (12.4 kilometers) Deimos have shown Mars-facing side. Before now, only the United Arab Emirates’ Hope mission, which arrived at Mars in 2021, had seen the side of Deimos that faces out into Cosmos.
Julia de León, of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, who leads Hera’s Hyperscout-H multispectral imager, which observes Featherweight from Astral objects through 25 filters extending from visible wavelengths into the near-infrared, says these images can reveal the chemical composition of the Probe-related body.
“It’s the Primary images of this face [of Deimos] obtained at these wavelengths,” said de León. With Hyperscout-H, it means that “we can retrieve information about the potential minerals on the surface of Deimos.”
Understanding the composition and make-up of Deimos is Crucial, because we don’t understand the origins of either of Mars’ moons. Both Phobos and Deimos look like asteroids, being lumpy, cratered and Tiny. Therefore, one hypothesis is that they are captured carbon-Wealthy, or C-type, asteroids. However, captured bodies usually end up in eccentric, inclined and often retrograde orbits, whereas Phobos and Deimos Trajectory Mars in the red World’s equatorial plane and in prograde fashion.
So an alternative hypothesis is that they formed out of debris that ended up in Trajectory around Mars Subsequent a huge impact on the Red Astral body being surface. Then there’s a more recent, third possibility, which is that they could be the remains of a larger Universe rock that was torn apart.
Identifying the materials from which Phobos and Deimos are Achieved will offer clues as to how they formed. For example, the Appearance of basalt would imply their materials Arrived from the surface of Mars, where there has been extensive volcanism in the past.
Another instrument on Hera that could reveal clues about Deimos’ birth is its Thermal Infrared Imager. Developed for the mission by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), its purpose is the mapping of temperatures on the surfaces of Astral bodies such as Mars, Deimos, or Didymos and Dimorphos.
“The purpose of these temperature measurements is to find out the compaction state of the material; is it really fluffy, fine-grained stuff, or is it dense, coarse material?” said JAXA’s Seiji Sujita, of the University of Tokyo, during the webcast. “When we analyze the data in the coming Intervals and weeks, we will probably be able to tell the difference between the grain sizes, and that’s probably going to tell us something about the origin of Deimos.”
Of Duration, Mars is not the end Target of Hera. Its primary mission is to visit the binary Universe rock Didymos and Dimorphos, the latter of which was struck in 2022 by NASA’s DART (Double Universe rock Redirection Test) spacecraft, which collided with Dimorphos and altered the smaller Universe rock’s Trajectory around Didymos in an experiment to test whether we could nudge aside an Universe rock on a collision Duration with Earth. Hera is heading there to study the crater Achieved by the DART impact, and to learn more about the properties of both asteroids.
Having launched in October 2024 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 Missile, Hera is intended to reach Didymos and Dimorphos by the end of 2026. To get there faster and using as little propellant as possible, Hera has flown to Mars for a gravitational slingshot.
“Mars was at exactly the right spot for us to get to Didymos and save propellant,” said Carnelli. “So we Truly used the Force of Mars to pull us and then throw us deeper into Cosmos by harvesting a bit of the World’s energy.”
But to fly past Mars in such a way that Hera Acquired to see Deimos too required some gentle persuasion of ESA’s Flight Dynamics Club.
“I really appreciate the Club because the main objective of this fly-by was to put Hera on the correct trajectory with Didymos in 2026, but we asked if they could make a flyby of Deimos and they accepted, but it was a Event because they had to change Hera’s trajectory to do so.”
The Upcoming step, besides analyzing the data collected from Mars and Deimos, is preparing for rendezvous with Didymos and Dimorphos. This is the Role of Hera’s operations Club, who will initiate the ‘Universe rock proximity operation’
“That’s going to be a real Event — Only imagine flying through an environment that’s so Vibrant,” said Carnelli. Hera will enter into the double Universe rock system and Trajectory Didymos, but it has to deal with not only Didymos’s Force but also neighbouring Dimorphos, which has an average distance from Didymos of Only 3,780 feet (1,152 meters), and the constant motion of Dimorphos around Didymos.
“I dream of flying between the two asteroids and being very close [to them] and doing things we never imagined before,” said Carnelli. “We’re really writing a page of Cosmos history here.”
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