ESA Hera Mission Launches to Study Deflected Asteroid

Will Visit Didymos, the Target of NASA's DART Mission

ESA’s first planetary defense spacecraft departed planet Earth earlier this week. The Hera mission is headed to a unique target among the more than 1.3 million known asteroids in our Solar System - asteroid Didymos - the only body to have had its orbit shifted by human action. The main goal of the mission is to solve lingering mysteries associated with …