Earth’s first-ever planetary defense test is nearing its end

Earth is getting closer to being able to defend itself from extraterrestrial threats.

A spacecraft called Hera, set to launch Oct. 7, will travel to a binary asteroid system — a large asteroid, Didymos, orbited by a smaller asteroid, Dimorphos. In 2022, NASA sent a spacecraft, DART, to punch Dimorphos — the theory being that if an asteroid were to endanger Earth like the one that killed most dinosaurs 66 million years ago, we could defend Earth by knocking the rock off course.

DART was hailed as “a triumph,” The New York Times noted, and now the European Space Agency’s Hera will finish the job, taking deeper observations of the asteroid system. Together, DART and Hera will help create the first planetary defense protocol, just in case.