On 14 March, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Schiaparelli lander were lofted into orbit by a Proton rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan, starting a seven-month journey to the Red Planet. Following separation from the final stage at 20:13 GMT (21:13 CET), the craft left on a trajectory pointing to where Mars will be in October, travelling at 33 001 km/h with respect to Earth.

For asteroid hunters, ExoMars offers a perfect target because its departure mimicks, in reverse, the approach of a small near-Earth object, or NEO. These include rocky asteroids formed between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter…

Quick imaging of a rapidly moving object whose location is only approximately known in a short time window is akin to what would happen if an asteroid were discovered on an imminent impact trajectory with Earth. [More at link]