NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL/NOIRLab
Witness the extraordinary “moonrise” of the newly discovered second asteroid behind Dinkinesh, as captured by Lucy’s Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager.
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When NASA’s Lucy mission encountered its first asteroid this week, it uncovered an unexpected surprise.
The Lucy spacecraft swiftly sailed past the small asteroid Dinkinesh, situated within our solar system’s primary asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. However, astonishment struck astronomers as they soon realized that what they thought was just a single asteroid is, in fact, a pair of celestial rocks in orbit.
Deeply impressed by this revelation, Hal Levison, the principal investigator for Lucy at the Southwest Research Institute, commented on Dinkinesh, which means “marvelous” in the Amharic language of Ethiopia, stating, “The name truly does justice to this remarkable discovery.”
Levison further expressed his amazement, saying, “When Lucy was initially selected for its mission, we had planned to visit seven asteroids. However, with the inclusion of Dinkinesh, two Trojan moons, and now this satellite, we have raised the bar to eleven!”
Clues indicating Dinkinesh’s binary nature first emerged when Lucy’s advanced instrument suite detected variations in brightness in the weeks leading up to the spacecraft’s close approach on Wednesday.
The Lucy team estimates that the larger asteroid measures approximately half a mile (805 meters) in width, while the smaller rock spans just 0.15 miles (220 meters) across.
During its closest approach on Wednesday afternoon, Lucy came within a mere 265 miles (425 kilometers) of the asteroid’s rugged surface.
This close approach allowed the Lucy spacecraft to meticulously test its suite of equipment, including its revolutionary terminal tracking system, which autonomously locates the space rock and keeps it within view while whizzing by at an astonishing speed of 10,000 miles per hour (4.5 kilometers per second). Tom Kennedy, guidance and navigation engineer at Lockheed Martin, a NASA collaborator on the Lucy mission, acclaimed, “These awe-inspiring images truly demonstrate the remarkable success of our terminal tracking system, even in the face of unexpectedly challenging conditions.”
Kennedy further added, “We can simulate, test, and practice all we want, but witnessing it unfold in reality is a surreal and humbling experience.”
Over the next week, the data collected during the flyby will continuously transmit back to Earth. This invaluable information will aid the mission team in preparing for future asteroid flybys, including a close encounter with another main belt asteroid named Donaldjohanson in 2025.
Lucy’s primary objective is to embark on an exploratory journey to the Trojan asteroid swarms situated around Jupiter, a realm yet to be traversed by any spacecraft. Resembling the Trojan warriors from Greek mythology who fought on opposite sides of the Trojan War, these captivating asteroids orbit the sun in two distinct groups—ahead of and behind Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.
Until now, glimpses of the Trojans for scientists have been limited to artist renderings or animated depictions due to their immense distance from Earth, hindering
