- Grammy-winning Cissy Houston, mother of Whitney, dies at 91
- UN biodiversity summit in Colombia aims to turn words into action
- Georgia Supreme Court reinstates six-week abortion ban
- 'Dark day': Victims mourned around the globe on Oct. 7 anniversary
- On attacks anniversary, Israel fights multi-front war
- Mexican mayor murdered days after taking office
- Intensifying to Category 5, Hurricane Milton targets Florida
- Mission to probe smashed asteroid launches despite hurricane
- Biden, Harris mark Oct. 7 with call for Mideast peace
- Dupont set for Toulouse return after post-Olympic holiday
- French rugby bosses tighten discipline after nightmare Argentina tour
- Oil prices extend gains on Mideast tensions, Wall Street slips
- Visitors to get rare view of Rome's Trevi Fountain
- Europe's asteroid mission Hera launches despite hurricane
- Man City and Premier League both claim victory in legal case
- Deschamps delight as 'light back on' for Pogba after doping ban
- Biden, Harris urge Mideast peace on Oct. 7 anniversary
- Neeskens, tough midfielder in Cruyff's Ajax and Dutch teams
- UN warns world's water cycle becoming ever more erratic
- Oil prices extend gains on Mideast tensions, Wall Street retreats
- Ex-Dutch football star Johan Neeskens dies
- Man Utd battling to improve fortunes, says Evans
- What is microRNA? Nobel-winning discovery explained
- Masood, Abdullah centuries lift Pakistan to 328-4 in first England Test
- Hurricane Milton strengthens fast, threatens Mexico, Florida
- Tunisia's President Saied set for landslide election win
- Barca hoping to return to Camp Nou 'by end of year'
- Trump to open second golf course at Scotland resort in summer 2025
- Super-sub Jhon Duran rewarded with new Aston Villa deal
- US duo win Nobel for gene regulation breakthrough
- Masood hits first ton for four years to power Pakistan to 233-1
- Fritz wins delayed match to reach Shanghai Masters third round
- Naomi Osaka pulls out of Japan Open with back injury
- Weather may delay launch of mission to study deflected asteroid
- China to flesh out economic stimulus plans after bumper rally
- Artist Marina Abramovic hopes first China show offers tech respite
- Asian markets track Wall St rally on US jobs data
- Pakistan 122-1 at lunch in first England Test
- Kazakhs approve plan for first nuclear power plant
- World marks anniversary of Oct. 7 attack on Israel
- 'Second family': tennis stars hunt winning formula with new coaches
- Philippines, South Korea agree to deepen maritime cooperation
- Mexico mayor murdered days after taking office
- Sardinia's sheep farmers battle bluetongue as climate warms
- Japan govt admits doctoring 'untidy' cabinet photo
- Israel marks first anniversary of Hamas's October 7 attack
- Darvish tames Ohtani as Padres thrash Dodgers
- Asian markets track Wall St rally on jobs data
- Family affair as LeBron, Bronny James make Lakers bow
- Cancer, cardiovascular drugs tipped for Nobel as prize week opens
RBGPF | -1.97% | 58.94 | $ | |
CMSC | -0.41% | 24.6 | $ | |
SCS | -0.23% | 12.94 | $ | |
BCC | 1.74% | 141.36 | $ | |
GSK | -0.49% | 38.63 | $ | |
BCE | -0.54% | 33.53 | $ | |
BP | 0.78% | 33.14 | $ | |
BTI | -0.21% | 35.215 | $ | |
NGG | -1.54% | 65.49 | $ | |
RIO | -0.17% | 69.585 | $ | |
RELX | -0.51% | 46.055 | $ | |
RYCEF | -1.45% | 6.88 | $ | |
JRI | -0.76% | 13.18 | $ | |
CMSD | -0.09% | 24.79 | $ | |
AZN | -0.78% | 76.87 | $ | |
VOD | 0.31% | 9.69 | $ |
Mission to probe smashed asteroid launches despite hurricane
Europe's Hera probe successfully launched Monday on a mission to inspect the damage done by a NASA spacecraft that smashed into an asteroid during the first test of Earth's planetary defences.
Despite fears that an approaching hurricane could delay the launch, the probe blasted off on a SpaceX rocket into cloudy skies from Cape Canaveral in the US state of Florida just before 11:00 am local time (1500 GMT).
Hera's mission is to investigate the aftermath of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which deliberately crashed into the Dimorphos asteroid in 2022 roughly 11 million kilometres (6.8 million miles) from Earth.
The fridge-sized DART spacecraft successfully knocked the asteroid well off course, demonstrating that humanity may no longer be powerless against potentially planet-killing asteroids that could head our way.
The European Space Agency (ESA) said that Hera will conduct what it has dubbed a "crime scene investigation".
"Hera will gather the data we need to turn kinetic impact into a well-understood and repeatable technique on which all of us may rely one day," ESA chief Josef Aschbacher said on the agency's broadcast of the launch.
The tense liftoff on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket was met with applause from teams on the ground.
"We had a lot of tears -- and outside in the public event, people were jumping around and spilling their beers," ESA broadcast host Matthew Russell said.
Around an hour after liftoff, Hera then separated from the rocket in space, beginning its two-year journey towards Dimorphos.
There was more applause minutes later when the team on the ground received the first signal from the spacecraft, indicating a successful launch.
- Hurricane, rocket anomaly -
The launch had been put into doubt by the intensifying Hurricane Milton, with SpaceX warning on Sunday that there was only a 15 percent chance of a launch.
Milton is the latest hurricane to hit the Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane Helene, which has killed at least 230 people since striking Florida late last month.
Hurricane Milton has been classified as "an extremely dangerous category 4 hurricane" and is expected to slam into the state by mid-week.
NASA said it will delay the launch of its Europa Clipper mission, which had been scheduled from Cape Canaveral on Thursday, due to "anticipated hurricane conditions" as Milton moves east across Florida over the week.
Hera's launch had also faced a potential delay due to an anomaly involving a Falcon 9 rocket during the launch of SpaceX's Crew-9 astronaut mission late last month.
But on Sunday, the US Federal Aviation Administration gave the last-minute green light, saying the nature of the problem posed little risk for Hera.
Next year, Hera is planned to get a gravitational boost as it flies past Mars, arriving near Dimorphos in December 2026 to begin its six-month investigation.
Dimorphos, which is actually a moonlet orbiting its big brother Didymos, never posed a threat to Earth.
After DART's impact, Dimorphos shed material to the point where its orbit around Didymos was shortened by 33 minutes -- proof that it was successfully deflected.
Analysis of the DART mission has suggested that rather than being a single hard rock, Dimorphos was more a loose pile of rubble held together by gravity.
"The consequence of this is that, instead of making a crater" on Dimorphos, DART may have "completely deformed" the asteroid, said Hera's principal investigator Patrick Michel.
- Nothing heading our way -
The 363-million-euro ($400 million) mission will be equipped with two nanosatellites.
One will land on Dimorphos and probe inside the asteroid with radar, a first on such an asteroid. The other will study its composition from farther out.
An asteroid wider than a kilometre (0.6 miles) -- which could trigger a global catastrophe on a scale that wiped out the dinosaurs -- is estimated to strike Earth every 500,000 years or so.
An asteroid around 140 metres (460 feet) wide -- which is a little smaller than Dimorphos but could still take out a major city -- hits our home planet around every 20,000 years.
There are also no known 140-metre asteroids on a collision course with Earth -- but only 40 percent of those space rocks are believed to have been identified.
P.Anderson--BTB