For an hour, HERA flew as close as 5,600 kilometers from the Martian surface, at a speed of 33,480 kilometers an hour. It used the opportunity to test some of its scientific instruments, snapping around 600 pictures, including rare ones of Deimos.

A mission to survey the results of a deliberate crash between an asteroid and a NASA spacecraft has taken stunning images of Mars and its moon Deimos

The European Space Agency (ESA) launched its Hera mission on October 7, 2024, to inspect the damage caused by NASA’s DART mission (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) when it smashed into an asteroid to redirect its orbit.

Hera spacecraft captured an extraordinary near-infrared image of Mars’ moon Deimos during a flyby of the Red Planet. This marks the first use of Hera’s science instruments, providing a detailed view of Deimos silhouetted against Mars—a rare perspective of the lesser-known Martian moon.

On the way to investigate the scene of a historic asteroid collision, a European spacecraft swung by Mars and captured rare images of the red planet's mysterious small moon Deimos, the European Space Agency (ESA) said Thursday.