Europe’s Hera spacecraft is visiting the Dimorphos-Didymos asteroid system to take a close look at the aftermath of NASA’s impact in 2022.

Four years after NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission smashed into the tiny satellite of asteroid 65803 Didymos, Europe’s Hera spacecraft has arrived much more peacefully on the scene. Hera rendezvoused with the Didymos-Dimorphos pair on November 11th.

Hera's first close-up view of the Didymos binary asteroid system, acquired by its monochrome Asteroid Framing Camera from 600 km away, gives a novel view of the larger Didymos asteroid.

ESA

The first close-up photo released by ESA shows Didymos clearly but only gives us a peek at Dimorphos. ESA is saving the reveal of what Dimorphos looks like now, post-smash, for a special event to be held in Berlin, Germany, on November 25th.

At only 780 meters (2,600 feet) across, Didymos doesn’t have enough mass to hold Hera in a stable circular orbit at a safe distance.…