A mission to survey the results of a deliberate crash between an asteroid and a NASA spacecraft has taken stunning images of Mars and its moon Deimos

Space probe Hera passed Mars while on its way to the Didymos asteroid system as part of planetary defence mission. View on euronews

While the car-sized spacecraft flew around the Mars system, flight controllers on Earth temporarily lost communication with Hera because the signal was blocked. Though the blackout was planned for the maneuver, Ian Carnelli, the European Space Agency's Hera mission manager, said it was deeply emotional.

For an hour, HERA flew as close as 5,600 kilometers from the Martian surface, at a speed of 33,480 kilometers an hour. It used the opportunity to test some of its scientific instruments, snapping around 600 pictures, including rare ones of Deimos.

On the way to investigate the scene of a historic asteroid collision, a European spacecraft swung by Mars and captured rare images of the red planet’s mysterious small moon, Deimos, the European Space Agency said on Thursday.

ESA's Hera spacecraft inaugurated use of its science instruments to image the smaller of the planet's two moons, Deimos.