NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft Images Asteroid Donaldjohanson
a year ago
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- #Asteroid
- NASA's Lucy spacecraft conducted a close flyby of asteroid Donaldjohanson on April 20, 2025, capturing images from approximately 600 miles (960 km) away.
- The asteroid, estimated to be about 5 miles (8 km) long and 2 miles (3.5 km) wide, revealed an unusual elongated contact binary shape with a narrow neck resembling nested ice cream cones.
- Preliminary analysis suggests Donaldjohanson's geology is complex, offering insights into the building blocks and collisional processes that shaped the Solar System.
- This encounter served as a full dress rehearsal for the mission, testing dense observation strategies ahead of primary targets like the Jupiter Trojan asteroid Eurybates in 2027.
- Lucy's instruments, including L’LORRI, L’Ralph, and L’TES, will continue analyzing data over the coming weeks to provide a more complete understanding of the asteroid's structure.
- The mission is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, with contributions from Southwest Research Institute, Lockheed Martin Space, and other institutions, as part of NASA’s Discovery Program.