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ESA's Hera captures separate views of Didymos and Dimorphos
వార్తల్లో ఎందుకు?
One asteroid hit by a probe, now seen as two: the DART-Hera planetary defence pair for GS3
Hera resolves the Didymos-Dimorphos pair ahead of its survey.
Why it matters: general awareness
What you need to know
2 నిమి
On 18 October 2026 the European Space Agency's Hera spacecraft captured its first clear image showing Didymos and Dimorphos as separate objects, using its black-and-white Asteroid Framing Camera.
Hera is surveying the binary asteroid system whose moon, Dimorphos, was hit by NASA's DART probe in 2022 in a planetary-defence test.
మూలాలు: Topper IAS editorial (PIB / The Hindu / Indian Express)
ముఖ్య వాస్తవాలు
Remember these
- On 18 October 2026 ESA's Hera captured its first clear image showing Didymos and Dimorphos as separate objects
- Image taken with Hera's black-and-white Asteroid Framing Camera
- Dimorphos is the moon of the binary asteroid Didymos
- NASA's DART probe struck Dimorphos in 2022 as a planetary-defence (kinetic impactor) test
- Hera is a European Space Agency mission surveying the system after the impact
ప్రిలిమ్స్ · మెయిన్స్
How the exam will ask it
ప్రిలిమ్స్
- Hera is a European Space Agency mission to study the Didymos-Dimorphos binary asteroid system.
- NASA's DART mission tested the kinetic impactor technique by striking Dimorphos, the moon of Didymos, in 2022.
- Lucy is a NASA mission to Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, not a JAXA mission.
మెయిన్స్
GS3 (Science and Technology, Space): Asteroid impacts are a low-probability, high-consequence risk, and DART showed that a kinetic impactor can alter an asteroid's orbit. Hera's follow-up survey measures the crater, mass and structure, so the technique can be validated and modelled for real threats. The way forward is international cooperation on detection, shared data and response protocols, with India building its own space situational awareness capacity.
Quick recall
Answer before you reveal
Consider the following pairs: Space mission — Agency
- Hera — European Space Agency
- DART — NASA
- Lucy — JAXA
How many of the above pairs are correctly matched?
- Only one
- Only two
- All three
- None
సమాధానం చూడండి
సమాధానం: B — Correct: Only two — Hera is ESA's and DART is NASA's, but Lucy is a NASA mission to Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, not JAXA's. • Only one — wrong: At least two pairs are correct, since Hera belongs to ESA and DART to NASA. • All three — wrong: Lucy is not a JAXA mission, so all three cannot be correct. • None — wrong: Pairs 1 and 2 are correctly matched, so 'None' is wrong.
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