NASA Lucy Spacecraft
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NASA
NASA’s Lucy Reveals Wobbling, Peanut-Shaped Asteroid
Even small asteroids lead complex lives. During its flyby of the asteroid Donaldjohanson last year, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft revealed the asteroid to be a wobbly, peanut-shaped body that has undergone a lot of activity in its relatively short history. Formed as fragments coalesced after a violent collision 155 million years ago, the asteroid was transformed by the small but inexorable force of…
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NASA
NASA Lucy Images Reveal Asteroid Dinkinesh to be Surprisingly Complex
Images from the November 2023 flyby of asteroid Dinkinesh by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft show a trough on Dinkinesh where a large piece — about a quarter of the asteroid — suddenly shifted, a ridge, and a separate contact binary satellite (now known as Selam). Scientists say this complicated structure shows that Dinkinesh and Selam have significant internal strength and a complex, dynamic…
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NASA
NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft Discovers 2nd Asteroid During Dinkinesh Flyby
On Nov. 1, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft flew by not just its first asteroid, but its first two. The first images returned by Lucy reveal that the small main belt asteroid Dinkinesh is actually a binary pair. 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),…
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