00:04space is a pretty wild place with asteroids rogue planets and possibly even alien species being a
00:09threat to humanity and while nasa's double asteroid redirect test or dart mission was a
00:14successful proof of concept in redirecting a celestial body a new mission by the esa is about
00:19to launch heading into space to inspect the dimorphous and didymus asteroid pair to better
00:24understand how we might redirect an asteroid coming our way the hera mission is set to begin
00:29on october 7th launching a spacecraft first at mars where we use the planet's gravity to slingshot
00:35towards its destination this is juan luis cano the planetary defense coordinator at the esa to explain
00:41here is going to help us a lot in understanding where are the physical properties of asteroids
00:47and this is very important for us because whenever we want to repeat this experiment or actually
00:53do it in order to defend the earth from asteroids it's very important to understand what is the
00:57reaction of these bodies to collisions or any other type of action that we might like to
01:02to put on the asteroid era is slated to arrive at didymus and dimorphous in 2026 meaning just four
01:08years from conception to mission execution an extremely small time frame for cosmic undertakings
01:13of this magnitude however 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 so we have understood that there
01:24is a threat of asteroids falling to the earth and actually causes damage to our societies so we have
01:30to protect ourselves against that
