Hera shares pictures of Earth from a distance of 1.4 million kilometers

Liputan6.com, Jakarta – Hera Space Shuttle share the first photo taken from space. The robot, which was launched on October 7, 2024, uses three instruments to take images.

Launching the European Space Agency (ESA) page on Thursday (17/10/2024), the spacecraft took a photo earth from a distance of 1.4 to 1.6 million kilometers as proof that the instruments are working properly. This image was taken by the Thermal Infrared Imager (TIRI) instrument developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

From the image shared on ESA’s official website, the TIRI instrument captured an image of the earth in the center led by the North Pole at the top. In the upper right corner of the image, you can see the appearance of the moon.

In addition to using TIRI, Hera also took pictures of Earth using an optical camera and the HS-H multicolor spectroscopy camera. As a result, the earth looks brighter and feels very close to Hera even though the actual distance is almost 2 million kilometers.

This shared image shows that the TIRI, optical camera, and HS-H multicolor spectroscopic camera can work properly. All these instruments will later be used to take pictures of the asteroids Dimorphos and Didymos.

Before that, the last mission from ESA was tasked with further investigating the impact of the DART mission’s collision with the asteroid Dimorphos. ESA launched Hera using a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 10.52 ET (21.52 WIB) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, United States.

Space exploration It is accompanied by two CubeSats, a group of small satellites that are expected to reach the asteroid Dimorphos in 2026. The three will perform a “crime scene investigation” to solve the remaining mysteries of the double asteroid system.

When it gets there, this spacecraft will be nearly 195 million kilometers from Earth. Hera will also stop before Mars in mid-March 2025.

This will give the spacecraft the extra momentum it needs to reach Didymos and Dimorphos two years after launch. In addition to testing its 11 instruments, Hera will fly within 6,000 kilometers of the surface of Mars and see one of the two Martian moons, namely Deimos, from a distance of 1,000 kilometers.