SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 14th October (EUROPA PRESS) –
Researchers from the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC), Julia de León and Javier Licandro, are involved in the Hera mission, under the European Space Agency (ESA), which was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral on 7th October at 14:52 UTC.
This marks the inaugural European planetary defence mission that, alongside NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), aims to investigate the outcomes of an asteroid deflection method known as ‘kinetic impactor’.
The DART spacecraft collided with the smaller asteroid, Dimorphos, part of the Didymos binary system, on 26th September 2022, altering its 12-hour orbital cycle by a total of 33 minutes. Hera is expected to reach the system at the end of 2026 to conduct a comprehensive examination following the impact.
The IAC Solar System Group, led by Julia de León, has been engaged with the mission since its onset. “We initially assisted in identifying the most suitable asteroid for testing this method, utilising observations from the telescopes of the Canary Islands Observatories (OCAN), and we are currently coordinating ground-based observations of Didymos, including imagery captured with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC),” Javier Licandro states.
The mission’s aim is to scrutinise in detail how Dimorphos was affected post-DART impact, specifically whether a crater was formed or if the asteroid experienced deformation, as well as investigating its internal composition and how the impact may have influenced Didymos, the larger asteroid.
HYPERSCOUT-H
Julia de León, together with Adriano Campo Bagatin from the University of Alicante, are the only researchers from Spanish institutions contributing to the scientific team of the mission.
De León also oversees one of the instruments aboard the spacecraft, HyperScout-H, a hyperspectral camera equipped with a detector clad in a thin layer of material featuring a total of 25 interference filters set in a 5×5 pixel configuration.
“This allows us to obtain images with good spatial resolution, enabling us to discern surface details of the asteroids (such as craters, rocks, and fractures) while also capturing colour information that helps us identify various minerals and their degree of alteration,” explains Julia de León.
The information gathered using HyperScout-H, alongside data from the other instruments on Hera, will be employed to construct compositional maps and pinpoint areas that have been modified by space weather influences or the impact effects from DART.
“Understanding the composition of these objects, along with their internal structure, is crucial to the planetary defence strategy when assessing the potential implications of a possible impact with Earth,” concludes De León.
