Europe's HERA mission has taken a good look at Mars and its moon Deimos on its way to explore the aftermath of the DART impact in the Didymos–Dimorphos asteroid system.

The flyby of Mars and Deimos wasn't a detour but a necessary maneuver to put the spacecraft on the right trajectory toward its ultimate destination. Swinging within 3,100 miles of Mars, Hera used ...

Hera was about 620 miles (1000 km) from the 7.7-mile-wide (12.4-m) Martian moon when the image was taken. Deimos orbits approximately 14,600 miles (23,500 km) from the surface of Mars.

Hera got as close as 1,000 kilometers, or about 620 miles, to Deimos. It used its various instruments to capture the images, characterize the mineral makeup on the moon and chart surface temperatures.

Hera was moving at 9 kilometres per second relative to Mars and was able to image the 12.4-kilometre-long Deimos from just 1000 kilometres away.

Hera’s target binary asteroid system is much smaller than Deimos. Dimorphos is a 558-foot-wide (170-meter) space rock that orbits its larger 2,625-foot-wide (800-meter) companion, Didymos.

ESA's Hera spacecraft is currently headed toward the aftermath of NASA's DART asteroid-deflection test. But first, it'll stop by Mars to study the Martian moon Deimos.

Deimos, Mars' 12.5-kilometer-wide moon, appears in front of the planet's surface in this photograph taken on March 12, 2025, by the European Space Agency's HERA mission for planetary defense.

Hera's flyby wasn't a detour but a necessary maneuver to put the spacecraft on the right trajectory toward its ultimate asteroid destination. Swinging within 625 miles of Deimos, Hera used Martian ...

An asteroid-chasing spacecraft just swung past Mars on Wednesday. As it zipped by, it took hundreds of shots of the Red Planet, as well as several snaps of Deimos, one of the two small Martian moons.

The gravity assist maneuver was not left just at that, as Hera's European Space Agency (ESA) handlers took the opportunity to take a few shots of the Red Planet's more mysterious moon, Deimos.

Hera got as close as 1,000 kilometers, or about 620 miles, to Deimos. It used its various instruments to capture the images, characterize the mineral makeup on the moon and chart surface temperatures.