00:00Space is a pretty wild place, with asteroids, rogue planets, and possibly even alien species
00:09being a threat to humanity.
00:11And while NASA's Double Asteroid Redirect Test, or DART mission, was a successful proof
00:15of concept in redirecting a celestial body, a new mission by the ESA is about to launch,
00:20heading into space to inspect the dimorphous and dimus asteroid pair to better understand
00:25how we might redirect an asteroid coming our way.
00:27The HERA mission is set to begin on October 7th, launching a spacecraft first at Mars,
00:32where it will use the planet's gravity to slingshot towards its destination.
00:36This is Juan Luis Cano, the Planetary Defense Coordinator at the ESA, to explain.
00:41HERA is going to help us a lot in understanding what are the physical properties of asteroids.
00:47And this is very important for us because whenever we want to repeat this experiment
00:52or actually do it in order to defend the Earth from asteroids, it's very important to understand
00:56what is the reaction of these bodies to collisions or any other type of action that we might
01:02like to put on the asteroids.
01:04HERA is slated to arrive at Dinamis and Dimorphis in 2026, meaning just four years from conception
01:09to mission execution, an extremely small time frame for cosmic undertakings of this magnitude.
01:15However, experts agree that if we're going to stop an incoming asteroid headed towards
01:18our planet, Earth's defenses will need to react as quickly as possible.
01:23So we have understood that there is a threat of asteroids falling to the Earth and actually
01:28cause damage to our societies.
01:30So we have to protect ourselves against that.
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