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Credit: The asteroid Donaldjohanson, as the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’Lorri) seen. This is one of the most detailed images that the Lucy spaceship of NASA returns during her Flyby.
The Lucy Spacecraft of NASA, which was currently on an asteroid croak mission, has captured an impressive close -up of her second goal: The Space Rock 52246 Donaldjohanson.
Lucy launched In 2021 to make a 12-year trip towards Jupiter Orbit to study an unexplored swarm of asteroids with the name Jupiters Trojan. These asteroids are the remains of our early solar system that share the orbit of the giant planet around the sun. On the way, the spaceship also presses in time for a few clothes samples for its Trojan goals in the street -and on Sunday (April 20) it crashed within 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) of the asteroid 52246 Donaldjohanson, who, based on the American paleoanthropologist by Johanson, was called the American Baleo Thropologist, which was designated by Johanson, who was designated by Johanson Whohanson, the Whoeron, Whohanson called named named named named named named named named named named named name called named named named Donald Johanson Who Whoes, fell Packed The Lucy Hominid -Fossil in Northern Ethiopia in 1974.
Pictures of the asteroid Lucy took on the three miles (five kilometers wide) asteroids shown Wide fluctuations in the brightness, which indicates that it was either a slow rotating rock and looked brighter when its longer sides were exposed to the spaceship or an elongated object. In fact, both confirmed close -ups of the asteroid, which Lucy sent home on Sunday, both: the asteroid was once two smaller parts that were connected to a larger whole, with a clear narrow neck between the two rags.
“Asteroid Donaldjohanson has a strikingly complicated geology,” said Hal Levison, the main researcher for Lucy at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, in A opinion. “If we examine the complex structures in detail, you will have important information about building blocks and collision processes that the planets formed in our solar system.”
The new pictures show that the asteroid turns. However, this apparent movement cannot be attributed to the asteroids itself, which affects a very slow speed of three years and eight months – but to the result of the Lucy room vehicle, which drives past 8.3 miles per second (13.4 kilometers per second) during its Flyby.
This picture was taken on April 20, 2025 at 1:51 p.m. Edt (5:51 p.m. UTC), which was taken from a range of approximately 660 miles (1,100 km) near the next approach. The closest approach of the spacecraft was 960 km, but the picture shown was taken about 40 seconds earlier. The picture was sharpened and processed to improve the contrast. | Credit: NASA/Goddard/SWRI/Johns Hopkins Apl/Noirlab
Preliminary analyzes of these images indicate the asteroids that is Probably a fragment A collision about 150 million years ago is larger than the initially valued scientists – with a length of 8 km and a width of 8 km and a width of 3.5 km at its widest point.
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– Asteroid ‘Dinky’, visited by Nasas Lucy spacecraft, gave birth to his own moon
The pictures do not technically show the entire asteroid to be clear because it is larger than the field of vision of the Lucy image. The mission team assumes that it will take up to a week to download the remaining encounter data from the spaceship, which offer a more complete image of the overall form of the asteroid.
“These early pictures by Donaldjohanson once again show the enormous skills of the Lucy room vehicle as an engine of discovery,” said Tom Statler, the program scientist for the Lucy mission at NASA headquarters in Washington, in the explanation. “The potential to really open a new window in the history of our solar system when Lucy gets into the Trojan -Sasteroids is immense.”
After this encounter, Lucy will spend the rest of this year through the asteroid belt towards the Jupiter Trojan asteroids. His first Trojan Flyby from Asteroid Eurybates and his satellite quala is planned for August 2027.
