NASA Lucy
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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’s Lucy Spacecraft Images Asteroid Donaldjohanson
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft took this image of the main belt asteroid Donaldjohanson during its flyby on April 20, 2025, showing the elongated contact binary (an object formed when two smaller bodies collide). This was Lucy’s second flyby in the spacecraft’s 12-year mission. Launched on Oct. 16, 2021, Lucy is the first space mission sent to explore a diverse population of small bodies…
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NASA
NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft Images Asteroid Donaldjohanson
In its second asteroid encounter, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft obtained a close look at a uniquely shaped fragment of an asteroid that formed about 150 million years ago. The spacecraft has begun returning images that were collected as it flew approximately 600 miles (960 km) from the asteroid Donaldjohanson on April 20, 2025. The asteroid Donaldjohanson as seen by the Lucy…
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Press Releases
NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft Prepares Second Asteroid Encounter
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft is 6 days and less than 50 million miles (80 million km) away from its second close encounter with an asteroid; this time, the small main belt asteroid Donaldjohanson. Download high-resolution video and images from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.NASA/Dan Gallagher This upcoming event represents a comprehensive “dress rehearsal” for Lucy’s main mission over the next decade: the…
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NASA
New Modeling Assesses Age of Next Target Asteroid for NASA’s Lucy
Although NASA’s Lucy spacecraft’s upcoming encounter with the asteroid Donaldjohanson is primarily a mission rehearsal for later asteroid encounters, a new paper suggests that this small, main belt asteroid may have some surprises of its own. New modeling indicates that Donaldjohanson may have been formed about 150 million years ago when a larger parent asteroid broke apart; its orbit and…
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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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