ESA’s Hera Spacecraft Captures First Close-Up Images of DART Asteroid Crash Site

European Space Agency Spacecraft Captures First Close-Up Images of Didymos Asteroid System

The European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft has captured its first close-up image of the Didymos binary asteroid system from a distance of approximately 60 kilometers, revealing a surface marked by boulders, craters, and grooves.

The Tech TL;DR:

• The Event: ESA’s Hera spacecraft photographed the Didymos asteroid system from roughly 60 km away, showcasing surface features created or altered by the 2022 DART impact.
• The Technology: Equipped with 12 scientific instruments and autonomous guidance software, Hera traveled for two years to reach the asteroid pair, which currently sits approximately 122 million miles from Earth.
• Next Milestones: The European Space Agency plans to release detailed images of both Didymos and its moonlet, Dimorphos, on November 25, 2026.

Surface Changes and the Aftermath of the DART Impact

The newly released black-and-white image shows the primary asteroid, Didymos, measuring about a half-mile wide, from a perspective on the side never seen by NASA’s spacecraft before its collision. Shadow largely obscures the smaller moonlet, Dimorphos, in this initial frame. According to the team, this previously unphotographed backside features distinct boulders, craters, and grooves alongside the continuation of an equatorial ridge.

“The first thing we said was ‘Wow!’ This feels like looking at a whole new world,” said Patrick Michel, Hera’s principal investigator, in a statement reported by Mashable and Space. Michel noted that the view presents the opposite side of Didymos from what DART’s camera recorded shortly before impact.

Michael Kueppers, ESA’s Hera mission scientist, explained to Mashable and Space that some surface characteristics likely originate from impact-ejected material traveling across the approximately one-kilometer gap between Dimorphos and Didymos. Mission scientists plan to systematically map these changes over the coming months.

Mission Objectives and the Path Forward for Planetary Defense

Launched in October 2024, Hera serves as a follow-up investigation to NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, which deliberately slammed the 580-kilogram DART spacecraft into Dimorphos at about 6.1 kilometers per second on September 26, 2022. That initial impact shortened Dimorphos’s orbit around Didymos by roughly 33 minutes, a change larger than pre-impact predictions, dropping the moonlet’s speed by about 2.7 millimeters per second. Hera captured a clear image of Didymos and Dimorphos as separate objects on October 18, 2026, using its Asteroid Framing Camera from about 1,280 kilometers away after executing two thruster maneuvers.

Over the next six months, the car-sized robotic spacecraft will examine the impact crater, measure the “beta factor” (the extra kickback from blasted rock and dust acting like rocket exhaust), and assess kinetic-impact efficiency. Hera also carries two small companion CubeSats, Milani and Juventas. Milani is designed to study surface spectra and nearby dust, while Juventas features a subsurface radar operating at 50 to 70 MHz to probe the inner layers of Dimorphos.

The European Space Agency plans to unveil the first detailed images of Dimorphos on November 25, 2026.