NASA’s Lucy spacecraft encountered a surprise last Wednesday as it approached the target asteroid Dinkinesh, located in the asteroid belt. Instead of finding a single asteroid, it found a binary pair. Early data indicated that asteroid Dinkinesh is about 0.5 miles wide and its orbiting partner is only 0.15 miles wide.
Lucy did not have time to stick around, but it captured enough images during its fly by to keep astronomers busy for some time. The spacecraft was flying about 10,000 mph as it passed the pair.
Lucy’s primary mission is the Trojan asteroids (that is, asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun). And why are they of interest? NASA mission page tells us:
Planet formation and evolution models suggest that the Trojan asteroids are likely to be remnants of the same primordial material that formed the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune), and thus serve as time capsules from the birth of our solar system over four billion years ago.
We may have many more surprises before Lucy finishes her 12-year mission.
Our Awesome Universe 