NASA’s Lucy -Space Varitage had his second meeting with an asteroid at the weekend, this time with the uniquely mentioned Donaldjohanson Space Rock. On April 20, the Lucy Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance imager (L’lorri) of the probe within about 600 miles of the elongated asteroid, who snarled images with intervals of about two seconds. The results show the “strikingly complicated geology” of the asteroid, ” According to Hal LevisonLucy’s lead researcher at the Southwest Research Institute.
“While we study the complex structures in detail, they will reveal important information about the building blocks and collision processes that have formed the planets in our solar system,” Levison Added in a NASA statement on April 21.
The first narrow look at Donaldjohanson seems to confirm that astronomers’ Previous observationsIn particular the variation period of 10 days of brightness. The photos show an elongated asteroid that was probably formed after the collision of two smaller bodies. That said, researchers noticed that the unique neck shape connected the two lobes of Donaldjohanson.
The asteroid also seems to be larger than initial estimates – the measurement of about 5 miles long and 2 miles wide. Donaldjohanson was actually wider than Lucy’s field of vision, and it will take about a week for the remaining data to downlink to Earth. This additional information is derived from information collected by L’ralph Color imager and infrared spectrometer, as well as the Ls -thermal infrared spectrometer.
Lucy’s newest asteroid encounter took place about 16 months after passing within 230 miles from Dinkonsh (aka “Dinky”) and the “Baby -Sasteroid” satellite, Selam. Donaldjohanson is the second of 10 asteroids to be studied on Lucy’s 12-year-old mission.
“The potential to really open a new window in the history of our solar system when Lucy comes to the Trojan -asteroids is huge,” said Tom StatlerA NASA program scientist for the Lucy mission.
Lucy will now spend most of the rest of 2025 to run through the most important asteroid belt of the solar system while it closes his main goal – the Jupiter Trojan -Sasteroid Eurybates. The last flyby of the spacecraft is on schedule to take place in August 2027.
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