Belfast astronomer to take part in asteroid mission

An astronomer based in Belfast is to take part in the European Space Agency's (ESA) first planetary-defence mission, to help ward off the threat of an asteroid crashing into Earth.

Professor Alan Fitzsimmons from the Astrophysics Research Centre at Queen's University in Belfast will be at ground control for the ESA Hera mission at the European Space Operations Centre in Germany.

Hera will launch from the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The launch is scheduled to happen later this month.

Hera will seek to gather new data and insights about how to deflect asteroids which may be bound for Earth and will showcase a raft of new technologies in the process.

It marks the first planned rendezvous with a binary asteroid in the history of space research.

Astrophysicists have found more than 35,000 "Near Earth Asteroids" to date and, of these, 1,657 are large enough and pass close enough to us to be on a continuously monitored risk list.

None of these are anticipated to hit Earth in the next 100 years, but more are discovered each year and the concern is about future asteroids that could wipe out cities or even countries.

Scientists have long debated and researched how best to avert any potential threat.

In September 2022, the Nasa Dart mission hit the small asteroid moon Dimorphos and changed its trajectory, as the first test of "kinetic impactor" technology designed to deflect asteroids.

Hera's job is to complete this experiment, by measuring the mass of Dimorphos moved by Dart and seeing the precise effect of the impact on the moon.