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The European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft for planetary defence has resolved its two target asteroids separately for the very first time, revealing the binary nature of the Didymos system, currently some 197 million km away from Earth. Hera imaged Didymos and Dimorphos with its monochromatic Asteroid Framing Camera on the evening of Friday 18 October, from a distance of 1280 km away from the asteroid pair.

CREDIT ESA

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The European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft for planetary defence has resolved its two target asteroids separately for the very first time, revealing the binary nature of the Didymos system, currently some 197 million km away from Earth.

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Hera imaged Didymos and Dimorphos with its monochromatic Asteroid Framing Camera on the evening of Friday 18 October, at a distance of 1280 km away from the asteroid pair.

“With this image the smaller Dimorphos asteroid becomes visible for the first time,” explains Michael Kueppers.…