NASA crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid in 2022; Europe's Hera probe reaches impact site to investigate if Earth can be saved from space rocks

Humanity's first attempt to deliberately change the motion of an asteroid has entered a crucial new phase, with a European spacecraft reaching the site of NASA's historic collision to investigate what happened beneath the debris.

According to the Associated Press, the European Space Agency's (ESA) Hera spacecraft has begun close inspections of the Didymos asteroid system and its smaller moonlet Dimorphos, which NASA deliberately struck in September 2022 as part of a planetary defence experiment.

The spacecraft is currently observing the pair from approximately 25 to 30 kilometres away, gathering data that could help scientists determine whether deliberately crashing spacecraft into threatening asteroids can become a reliable way to protect Earth.The mission follows NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which made history on September 26, 2022, when a spacecraft deliberately slammed into Dimorphos at approximately 22,000 km per hour.