This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Lucy spacecraft flying past asteroids in Jupiter’s orbit. Lucy will be the first mission to explore Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids.
Rendering courtesy of NASA/GSFlightC/Conceptual Image Lab/Adriana Gutierrez
A NASA spacecraft recently flew past a small asteroid. Named Lucy, the spacecraft is headed toward Jupiter to examine the unexplored Trojan asteroids that are trapped by the gravity of the giant planet.
Along the way, Lucy will visit two asteroids in the main asteroid belt. This first one is named “Dinkinesh,” an Ethiopian word for “marvelous.” It is the smallest the spacecraft will study — less than a half mile across — so NASA scientists use the nickname “Dinky.”
Image of the asteroid Dinkinesh taken by the Lucy spacecraft on Nov. 1 as it flew past. The image reveals that Dinkinesh has a small satellite.
Photo courtesy of
NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL/NOAO
Lucy flew within 270 miles of the asteroid on Nov. 1. The first images from the probe revealed that Dinkinesh has a small moon only 700-feet wide. This is not unusual; astronomers have discovered nearly 400 asteroids in our solar system that have satellites.
Meanwhile, the spacecraft will continue onward to its next target. In 2025, it will encounter an asteroid named after paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson. An apropos name as the probe itself is named after the famous australopithecine fossil “Lucy.”
Kevin D. Conod is the Planetarium Astronomer at the County College of Morris and president of the North Jersey Astronomical Group.
