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.

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.

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 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.

The flyby placed Hera 620 miles (1,000 km) from Deimos, which orbits Mars at approximately 14,600 miles (23,500 km). The image, taken with the Hyperscout H imager, reveals surface details in 25 ...

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 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.

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.

Deimos, the moon of Mars, appears in silhouette against the red planet, here seen in light blue in an infrared image, captured by ESA's Hera probe during a flyby on March 12, 2025. Credit: ESA ...

The surface of Mars and the face of Deimos, the smaller and more mysterious of Mars’ two moons, captured on March 12 by ESA’s Hera mission for planetary defence. (AFP) ...