Asteroid probe snaps rare pics of Martian moon
On the way to investigate the scene of a historic asteroid collision, a European spacecraft swung by Mars and captured rare images of the red planet's mysterious small moon Deimos, the European Space Agency (ESA) said Thursday.
Europe's HERA mission is aiming to find out how much of an impact a NASA spacecraft made when it deliberately smashed into an asteroid in 2022 in the first-ever test of our planetary defences.
But HERA will not reach the asteroid -- which is 11 million kilometres (seven million miles) from Earth in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter -- until late 2026.
On the long voyage there, the spacecraft slingshotted around Mars on Wednesday.
The spacecraft used the planet's gravity to get a "kick" that also changed its direction and saved fuel, mission analyst Pablo Munoz told a press conference.
For an hour, HERA flew as close as 5,600 kilometres from the Martian surface, at a speed of 33,480 kilometres an hour.
It used the opportunity to test some of its scientific instruments, snapping around 600 pictures, including rare ones of Deimos.
The lumpy, 12.5 kilometre-wide moon is the smaller and less well-known of the two moons of Mars.
Exactly how Deimos and the bigger Phobos were formed remains a matter of debate.
Some scientists believe they were once asteroids that were captured in the gravity of Mars, while others think they could have been shot from a massive impact on the surface.
The new images add "another piece of the puzzle" to efforts to determine their origin, Marcel Popescu of the Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy said.
There are hopes that data from HERA's "HyperScout" and thermal infrared imagers -- which observe colours beyond the limits of the human eye -- will shed light on this mystery by discovering more about the moon's composition.
Those infrared imagers are why the red planet appears blue in some of the photos.
- Bolstering planetary defence -
Next, HERA will turn its focus back to the asteroid Dimorphos.
When NASA's DART mission smashed into Dimorphos in 2022, it shortened the 160-metre-wide asteroid's orbit around its big brother Didymos by 33 minutes.
Though Dimorphos itself posed no threat to Earth, HERA intends to discover whether this technique could be an effective way for Earth to defend itself against possibly existence-threatening asteroids in the future.
Space agencies have working to ramp up Earth's planetary defences, monitoring for potential threats so they can be dealt with as soon as possible.
Earlier this year, a newly discovered asteroid capable of destroying a city was briefly given a more than three percent chance of hitting Earth in 2032.
However further observations sent the chances of a direct hit back down to nearly zero.
Richard Moissl, head of the ESA's planetary defence office, said that asteroid, 2024 YR, followed a pattern that will become more common.
As we get better at scanning the skies, "we will discover asteroids at a higher rate," he said.
The ESA is developing a second planetary defence mission to observe the 350-metre-wide asteroid Apophis, which will fly just 32,000 kilometres from Earth on April 13, 2029.
If approved by the ESA's ministerial council, the Ramses mission will launch in 2028, reaching the asteroid two months before it approaches Earth.
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'NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory will capture more information about our universe than all optical telescopes throughout history combined,' said National Science Foundation Chief of Staff Brian Stone, who is currently performing the duties of the NSF director (as the position is currently vacant). Among the observatory's initial accomplishments was the discovery of 2,104 asteroids, including seven near-Earth asteroids, that have never been seen before in our solar system. None of the newly found near-Earth asteroids pose a risk to our planet, according to scientists at the observatory. Imagery of the asteroids is expected to be shared later Monday. While ground- and space-based telescopes spot about 20,000 asteroids each year, Rubin Observatory is expected to uncover millions of the space rocks within its first two years, according to the National Science Foundation. The telescope is also considered the most effective way to spot any interstellar comets or asteroids that may travel through our solar system. The observatory's mirror design, sensitive camera and telescope speed are all the first of its kind, enabling Rubin to spot tiny, faint objects such as asteroids. The observatory will also constantly take thousands of images every night, cataloging changes in brightness to reveal otherwise hidden space rocks like near-Earth asteroids that could be on a collision course with our planet, according to the foundation. A sneak peek shared Monday includes a video made from over 1,100 images captured by the observatory that begins with a detailed look at two galaxies. The video then zooms out to showcase about 10 million galaxies spotted by the camera's wide view — roughly 0.05% of the 20 billion galaxies Rubin will observe over 10 years. The observatory team also released a mosaic of the Trifid and Lagoon nebulae, which are star-forming regions that resemble clouds located in the Sagittarius constellation. The mosaic, made up of 678 separate images taken over just seven hours, captured faint and previously invisible details such as clouds of gas and dust in the nebulae, which are several thousand light-years away from Earth. The initial images were selected to showcase the telescope's enormous field of view, which enables detailed glimpses of interacting galaxies as well as broad views of millions of galaxies, said Dr. Yusra AlSayyad, deputy associate director of the data management subsystem for the Rubin Observatory. 'It has such a wide field of view and such a rapid cadence that you do have that movielike aspect to the night sky,' said Dr. Sandrine Thomas, telescope project scientist for the Rubin Observatory. 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The survey is expected to begin between four to seven months after first light. '(Rubin) will enable us to explore galaxies, stars in the Milky Way, objects in the solar system, and all in a truly new way. Since we take images of the night sky so quickly and so often, (it) will detect millions of changing objects literally every night,' said Dr. Aaron Roodman, professor of particle physics and astrophysics at Stanford University's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California. Roodman was responsible for the assembly and testing of Rubin Observatory's camera. Rubin's capabilities to spot interesting phenomena will also enable it to be a 'discovery machine' that can identify interesting areas of focus for other telescopes, Roodman said. The observatory could also enable the detection of previously unknown types of celestial objects. 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'NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory will capture more information about our universe than all optical telescopes throughout history combined,' said National Science Foundation Chief of Staff Brian Stone, who is currently performing the duties of the NSF director (as the position is currently vacant). Among the observatory's initial accomplishments was the discovery of 2,104 asteroids, including seven near-Earth asteroids, that have never been seen before in our solar system. None of the newly found near-Earth asteroids pose a risk to our planet, according to scientists at the observatory. Imagery of the asteroids is expected to be shared later Monday. While ground- and space-based telescopes spot about 20,000 asteroids each year, Rubin Observatory is expected to uncover millions of the space rocks within its first two years, according to the National Science Foundation. The telescope is also considered the most effective way to spot any interstellar comets or asteroids that may travel through our solar system. The observatory's mirror design, sensitive camera and telescope speed are all the first of its kind, enabling Rubin to spot tiny, faint objects such as asteroids. The observatory will also constantly take thousands of images every night, cataloging changes in brightness to reveal otherwise hidden space rocks like near-Earth asteroids that could be on a collision course with our planet, according to the foundation. A sneak peek shared Monday includes a video made from over 1,100 images captured by the observatory that begins with a detailed look at two galaxies. The video then zooms out to showcase about 10 million galaxies spotted by the camera's wide view — roughly 0.05% of the 20 billion galaxies Rubin will observe over 10 years. The observatory team also released a mosaic of the Trifid and Lagoon nebulae, which are star-forming regions that resemble clouds located in the Sagittarius constellation. The mosaic, made up of 678 separate images taken over just seven hours, captured faint and previously invisible details such as clouds of gas and dust in the nebulae, which are several thousand light-years away from Earth. The initial images were selected to showcase the telescope's enormous field of view, which enables detailed glimpses of interacting galaxies as well as broad views of millions of galaxies, said Dr. Yusra AlSayyad, deputy associate director of the data management subsystem for the Rubin Observatory. 'It has such a wide field of view and such a rapid cadence that you do have that movielike aspect to the night sky,' said Dr. Sandrine Thomas, telescope project scientist for the Rubin Observatory. The observatory, located in the Andes on the top of Cerro Pachón in Chile, is nearly complete after about two decades of work. The facility is set to achieve 'first light,' or make the first scientific observations of the Southern Hemisphere's sky using its 8.4-meter (27.5-foot) Simonyi Survey Telescope, on July 4. The telescope's location in the Southern Hemisphere allows for a great view of the Milky Way's galactic center, said Edward Ajhar, Rubin Observatory's program officer. The region in central Chile has also been home to other ground-based observatories and is favored for astronomical observations because it affords dry air and dark skies. The observatory's main objective is the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, an ultrawide and ultra-high-definition movie of the universe made by scanning the entire sky every few nights over 10 years to capture a time-lapse compilation of whizzing asteroids and comets, exploding stars, and distant galaxies as they change. The survey is expected to begin between four to seven months after first light. '(Rubin) will enable us to explore galaxies, stars in the Milky Way, objects in the solar system, and all in a truly new way. Since we take images of the night sky so quickly and so often, (it) will detect millions of changing objects literally every night,' said Dr. Aaron Roodman, professor of particle physics and astrophysics at Stanford University's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California. Roodman was responsible for the assembly and testing of Rubin Observatory's camera. Rubin's capabilities to spot interesting phenomena will also enable it to be a 'discovery machine' that can identify interesting areas of focus for other telescopes, Roodman said. The observatory could also enable the detection of previously unknown types of celestial objects. The telescope's namesake, considered to be one of the most influential women astronomers, provided some of the first evidence that dark matter existed. In Rubin's honor, the telescope is expected to continue her pioneering work. 'Through this remarkable scientific facility, we will explore many cosmic mysteries, including the dark matter and dark energy that permeate the universe,' Stone said. Dark matter is an enigmatic substance that shapes the cosmos, while dark energy is a force that accelerates the expansion rate of the universe, according to NASA. Though they are thought to make up most of the cosmos, both are impossible to directly observe but can be detected due to their gravitational effects. 'Rubin has enormous potential to help us learn what dark energy really is and how the universe's expansion is accelerating here, too,' Roodman said. 'Rubin's unique ability to see billions of galaxies and to image them repeatedly over 10 years will literally enable us to see the universe in a new way.'
