Swiss-Assisted Asteroid Defence Mission Arrives At Dimorphos

(MENAFN- Swissinfo) Four years after a NASA probe struck the asteroid moon Dimorphos in the first planetary defence crash test, Europe's Hera space probe is in place to measure the impact. Select your language

Generated with artificial intelligence. Listening: Swiss-assisted asteroid defence mission arrives at Dimorphos This content was published on October 20, 2026 - 11:55 4 minutes Keystone-SDA

Deutsch de Asteroiden-Abwehr: Mission mit Berner Beteiligung erreicht Ziel Original Read more: Asteroiden-Abwehr: Mission mit Berner Beteiligung erreicht Español es La misión de defensa contra asteroides, con ayuda suiza, llega a Dimorphos Read more: La misión de defensa contra asteroides, con ayuda suiza, llega a Dimo

The forensic investigation, with Swiss participation, is now underway and Hera's data is set to reveal the effects of the impact.

“The result will provide a better basis for determining how much energy and momentum are required to deflect an asteroid of a given mass,” astrophysicist Martin Jutzi from the University of Bern, who is involved in the mission, told the Keystone-SDA news agency.“This will then allow us to determine how efficiently an asteroid can actually be deflected by colliding with it.”

The DART spacecraft, launched by the United States space agency NASA, crashed into Dimorphos in September 2022 at a speed of around 6.1 kilometres per second – just under 22,000 kilometres per hour.

This celestial body, approximately 160 metres in size, orbits the larger asteroid Didymos like a moon. The targeted impact shortened Dimorphos' orbital period from 11 hours and 55 minutes to around 11 hours and 22 minutes.

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