The European Space Agency launched its Hera spacecraft to study an asteroid NASA crashed into two years ago. The mission aims to see if Earth can defend against potential deadly space rocks, but results won't be available until 2026.

A NASA spacecraft knocked into an asteroid two years ago to test planetary defense. Now, a new mission will inspect the damage, with the goal of helping future asteroid deflection.

Dodging stormy weather ahead of Hurricane Milton, SpaceX launched the European Space Agency's $398 million Hera probe Monday on a follow-up flight to find out precisely how a moonlet orbiting a small asteroid was affected by the high-speed impact of NASA's DART probe in 2022.