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NASA ’s Lucy space vehicle has capture its first high-pitched - resolution images of an asteroid , revealing a bizarrely shaped 150 - million - twelvemonth - honest-to-goodness space sway .
The asteroid Donaldjohanson formed when two smaller objects smash into each other . Donaldjohanson is minute in the heart with two lobes on either side , like a misshapen groundnut with one sum larger than the other .
The Lucy spacecraft’s long-range reconnaissance imager captured asteroid Donaldjohanson in never-before-seen detail.
Lucy fly as close as 600 miles ( 960 kilometers ) — about the width of Montana — from Donaldjohanson on Sunday ( April 20 ) , get the first detailed images of the asteroid . investigator desire that study Donaldjohanson will aid shed light on how oursolar system ’s satellite formed .
" Asteroid Donaldjohanson has strikingly complicated geology,“Hal Levison , the principal investigator for Lucy at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado , state in astatementfrom NASA . " As we study the complex structures in detail , they will bring out crucial information about the building blocks and collisional processes that formed the planet in our Solar System . "
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TheLucy missionlaunched in 2021 and is on its way to study ancient asteroids orbiting the sunshine in the chief asteroid rap , around 445 million international nautical mile ( 715 million km ) from Earth . Lucy ’s main targets are the Trojan asteroids , which are jillion of years former — far older than Donaldjohanson — and reach in two group on either side of Jupiter .
The Trojan asteroids are in all likelihood made from the same ancient material that formed planets like Jupiter , Neptune and Saturn , and thus have the potential to provide scientist with a window into the organization of our solar system .
Donaldjohanson is a medium - sized asteroid in the principal asteroid rap between Mars and Jupiter , orbiting the sun from a length that ranges between around 180 million and 260 million Roman mile ( 290 million and 420 million km ) , according toSpace Reference .
research worker estimated that Donaldjohanson is around 5 miles ( 8 kilometer ) long and 2 miles ( 3.5 km ) wide at its widest dot . That makes the peanut - mold rock peanut - sized compare with some of the Trojan asteroids Lucy drive to study . Lucy ’s first Trojan objective , Eurybates , is judge to be around40 miles(64 km ) wide .
Donaldjohanson is an appropriate arrest - off for Lucy : The asteroid is named after American paleoanthropologistDonald Johanson , who find theAustralopithecusfossil " Lucy " — the stiff of an out human congenator — with his graduate scholar Tom Gray in 1974 . NASAnamed the Lucy missionafter that fossil because , in the same way that the fogy supply sixth sense into the phylogenesis of humans , researchers go for that this mission will attain the same for the origin of planets .
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Lucy seize the new mental image using the Lucy Long - Range Reconnaissance Imager , although not all of the asteroid is seeable in the look-alike because Donaldjohanson is larger than Lucy ’s field of opinion . Researchers will learn more about the asteroid ’s full shape as they receive more data from the spacecraft , according to the program line .
Lucy first tested its system with a flyby of theasteroid Dinkineshin 2023 . However , a NASA spokesperson described the recent encounter with Donaldjohanson as a " full dress rehearsal " ahead of the ballistic capsule ’s sojourn to the first Trojan asteroid in 2027 .
" These other images of Donaldjohanson are again show the tremendous potentiality of the Lucy spacecraft as an locomotive of discovery,“Tom Statler , a program scientist for the Lucy delegation at NASA , said in the instruction . " The potential to really open a Modern window into the account of our solar system of rules when Lucy gets to the Trojan asteroids is immense . "
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