NASA Shares Striking Close-Up Of Unusual Asteroid Donaldjohanson

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft recently completed a successful flyby of its second asteroid target, capturing detailed images of the elongated and oddly shaped object known as Donaldjohanson. The close-ups revealed the asteroid’s distinct double-lobed form, confirming it as a contact binary — a celestial body formed when two separate objects gently collided and fused together.

An Asteroid with a Fossil-Inspired Name and Unique Geology

Named after the famed anthropologist who discovered the Lucy fossil, Donaldjohanson features a narrow neck with ridged formations. NASA likened its structure to a pair of ice cream cones stacked together. According to Hal Levison, lead scientist for the Lucy mission at the Southwest Research Institute, the asteroid’s complex geology may offer key insights into the early building blocks and collision events that shaped our solar system.

On April 20, Lucy came within about 600 miles (960 kilometers) of the asteroid, capturing images roughly every two seconds during the high-speed pass. The data showed that Donaldjohanson is slightly larger than expected—around 5 miles (8 kilometers) in length and 2 miles (3.5 kilometers) wide.

This flyby follows Lucy’s 2023 encounter with asteroid Dinkinesh and its moonlet Selam, which was also revealed to be a contact binary. Both objects lie within the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, serving as preliminary targets ahead of Lucy’s main mission: investigating the Jupiter Trojan asteroids.

These Trojan asteroids, which orbit the Sun in tandem with Jupiter at gravitationally stable points, have never before been studied up close. Scientists believe that exploring them will unlock crucial information about the formation and evolution of our solar system.

Early Images Reveal Lucy’s Scientific Power

Tom Statler, NASA’s program scientist for the Lucy mission, emphasized the spacecraft’s imaging capabilities, describing the data as evidence of Lucy’s “tremendous potential” to reshape our understanding of the solar system’s origins.

In the coming weeks, scientists will analyze data from multiple instruments aboard Lucy, including black-and-white and color imagers, an infrared spectrometer, and a thermal sensor. The spacecraft will continue its journey through the asteroid belt before its first close encounter with a Trojan asteroid—Eurybates—set for August 2027, followed by four more flybys between 2027 and 2033.

Read the original article on: Science Alert

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