ESA's space probe captures detailed images of Mars and its mysterious moon

European space probe Hera flew past Mars on Wednesday on its way to Dimorphos on its planetary defence mission. During the flyby, the probe captured unique images of the Red Planet, as well as one of its moons, Deimos, from a new perspective.

On Thursday, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne announced Hera passed Mars and its two moons on Wednesday. The images the space probe had taken were first released during an live streamed webcast by the European Space Agency (ESA).

"We have some nice images from the side facing Mars," Austrian geophysicist Stefan Ulamec said, "but this is one of the very rare and and I think maybe of the best resolution we have so far of the far side of Deimos."

Out of the two moons, Deimos is smaller and more mysterious.

"For Deimos, we don't have as many images as Phobos, so all opportunities to see Deimos are high value," Hera's prinicpal investigator Patrick Michelle said during the livestream revealing the images for the first time.

Hera is the ESA's first planetary defence mission. Launched in October last year, the probe is on its way to collect post-impact data from asteroid Dimorphos.

In 2022, NASA launched the DART spacecraft towards Dimorphos, which orbits around Didymos. The US probe deliberately crashed into the surface of the asteroid, deflecting its course.

"Two years ago, we sent a probe to deflect an asteroid, to change its orbit," Hera's mission manager Ian Carnelli said during the introduction of the livestream, "and now we're going back to get all of the scientific data to turn this test on one specific asteroid to a technique that we can apply to any other asteroid."

"Therefore we are putting in place a fully fledged insurance policy for Planet Earth," Carnelli concluded.

Why is Hera at Mars?

The main objective of the flyby was to put Hera on the correct trajectory towards the Didymos asteroid system. The trajectory of the mission did not initially incorporate the flyby past the two moons, but was later amended in order to collect the detailed images.

During the flyby, Hera used the gravity of Mars to be launched deeper into space. An ESA report stated that "this manoeuvre shortened Hera's journey time by many months and saved a substantial amount of fuel."

Carnelli said that "harvesting planet energy" is a way to use a "minimum amount of energy to reach the target." The organic use of energy is a way to keep costs down.

Former Queen band member and astrophysicist, Brian May, who also attended the Hera image launch, said "it's important to us all because we we could be wiped out like the dinosaurs were wiped out."

"If this if this stuff goes wrong, if we don't detect this object which is coming towards us, which will destroy humanity, then we're in big trouble."