Asteroid (18805) Kellyday

This GIF contains observations of asteroid (18805) Kellyday made by ESA’s Hera spacecraft on 19 July 2025, while Hera was approximately 6 million km from the asteroid. The raw images have been processed and aligned and show Kellyday moving downwards through the centre of the frame.

Asteroid Kellyday appeared roughly 40 times fainter than asteroid Otero, and these observations pushed the limits of the faint object detection of Hera’s Asteroid Framing Camera. The ability to detect Kellyday under these difficult conditions bodes well for Hera’s arrival at Didymos, when the camera will need to detect the asteroid as soon as possible and keep it in the centre of Hera’s field of view during the approach.