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An asteroid affectionately known as " Dinky " has been break down through space with an even dinkier companion hidden behind it , surprising new ikon fromNASA ’s Lucy spacecraft reveal .
Zooming past theasteroidat 10,000 miles per hour ( 16,000 km / h ) on Nov. 1 , Lucy made its near - ever observations of Dinkinesh ( " Dinky " ) , an asteroid that Lucy has been tracking since the spacecraft ’s launch in 2021 . Flying within roughly 270 naut mi ( 430 kilometers ) of Dinkinesh , Lucy revealed that the distance sway is n’t just one asteroid , as initially thought , but a binary distich made of a larger , half - mile wide ( 790 meters ) rock and a 0.15 mile all-embracing ( 220 m ) " moon " orbiting closely around it .
This image shows the “moonrise” of the satellite as it emerges from behind asteroid Dinkinesh as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI), one of the most detailed images returned by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft during its flyby of the asteroid binary. This image was taken at 12:55 p.m. EDT (1655 UTC) Nov. 1, 2023, within a minute of closest approach, from a range of approximately 270 miles (430 km). From this perspective, the satellite is behind the primary asteroid.
" We know this was going to be the little independent bang asteroid ever see up close,“Keith Noll , Lucy task scientist from NASA ’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland , pronounce in astatement . " The fact that it is two makes it even more exciting . "
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Dinkinesh and its newfound moon experience in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter , approximately 300 million miles ( 480 million km ) from Earth . As Lucy go up the asteroid couple over the previous several weeks , astronomers observed Dinkinesh ’s cleverness changing over time , offering the first clues that there could be a smaller object revolve around it . The Nov. 1 flyby confirm this .
This Dinky duette are merely the first asteroid that Lucy will study on a deputation that will ultimately take the space vehicle all the way toJupiter . In 2025 , Lucy will make a close flyby of the main belt ammunition asteroid Donaldjohanson , before lead out of the asteroid belt and into Jupiter ’s orbit . The mission ’s main targets are a group of eight asteroids known as the Trojans , which share Jupiter ’s orbital cavity around the sun but are n’t peculiarly tightlipped to the gaseous state giant .
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Trojan asteroid are suspected to be made of the same ancient stuff that formed the outersolar systemplanets , Jupiter , Saturn , Uranus and Neptune . study them could reveal valuable clues about the formation of thesolar systemmore than 4 billion year ago , according to NASA .
Lucy is bear to hit its first Trojan asteroid targets in August and September 2027 .
