Hera spacecraft separates Didymos and Dimorphos in first paired asteroid image
🤖 AI-generated content — The title and summary were produced automatically by artificial intelligence, without human editorial review.
ESA’s Hera probe resolved Didymos and Dimorphos as separate bodies for the first time in an image taken on 18 October from about 1,280 km away; the pair is roughly 197 million km from Earth. Michael Kuepers said Dimorphos appears as a distinct pixel beside Didymos. Two October thruster burns cut Hera’s relative speed to 20 m/s as it closes in to study NASA’s 2022 impact on Dimorphos, about 151 m across, which shifted more than models predicted.
Continue in the app — vote & join in ➔Source: ScienceDaily · via ahirlevel.hu