Planetary Defence: The DART and Hera Missions

The talk will contain an overview of the results of the successful kinetic impactor test to modify the orbit of the binary asteroid system (65803) Didymos and look ahead to what we expect to learn from the Hera mission rendezvous with this system in 2026-2027. Dr. Jackson is a member of the Hera mission investigation team, developing a thermal model of the binary system to enable the properties of these asteroids to be determined from thermal imaging by the Hera spacecraft. 

Dr. Jackson completed his PhD at the OU in 2023 and he has worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh and The Open University aiming to characterise asteroids from ground- and space-based telescope observations.