Once they have that knowledge, the modelling will intensify; they will take the data from the observatories and put it through physics simulations again until they have a solid picture of what occurred. As a result, when the European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft arrives to the asteroid system in a few years, experts will have a decent notion of what to expect.
All of this is critical information for any future expedition to reroute an asteroid coming toward our planet – the fundamental tenet of planetary defence. Dimorphos and Didymos did not represent a danger to Earth, but experts remain on the alert for additional potentially hazardous asteroids and near-Earth objects.
