Hera Mission Arrival (online)

Join us online for the world premiere of the first images captured by Hera upon reaching the Didymos / Dimorphos asteroid system.

More than 40,000 near-Earth asteroids have been discovered to date, some of which could potentially hit our planet with catastrophic consequences. The international scientific community is investigating methods to prevent such an event from happening, such as deflecting the asteroid’s trajectory.

On 26 September 2022, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft impacted asteroid Dimorphos at a speed of 14,000 mph, changing its orbital period around the larger asteroid Didymos. DART was the world's first space mission to test asteroid deflection using a kinetic impactor for planetary defence.

Following on the DART mission, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched the Hera spacecraft in 2024 to perform a detailed post-impact survey of the Didymos / Dimorphos binary asteroid system.

After two years of interplanetary space travel, Hera has successfully arrived at its destination. On Wednesday 25 November, ESA will disclose from Berlin, Germany, the first images captured by the spacecraft.

Join the UK Hera science team online or in-person at the University of Liverpool to witness first-hand this historic moment.

Meet the planetary defence experts introducing the DART and Hera missions, and participate in a live connection with Berlin, where the ESA delegation will announce to the world the first post-impact images of Dimorphos.

Hera will provide extremely valuable information for future asteroid deflection technologies, increasing our understanding of asteroid geophysics as well as solar system formation and evolutionary processes.

This event is organised by Dr Stefania Soldini and Dr Ricardo Torres, and it is sponsored by the UKRI-FLF Scheme grant number MR/W009498/1.