The smaller asteroid in the binary system may be seen in this photograph emerging from the larger's shadow.
On Wednesday, NASA’s Lucy probe was scheduled to pass by its first asteroid. However, since the spacecraft discovered that the main belt asteroid Dinkinesh is actually two asteroids bonded together as a binary pair, the mission sailed past its first two asteroids.
The primary goal of NASA’s six billion-kilometer Lucy mission, which was launched on October 16, 2021, is to observe the Jupiter Trojan asteroids. The Trojans are a collection of tiny objects that travel in two “swarms” around Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun. While one swarm trails behind the gas giant, the other leads Jupiter in its orbit.
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Dinkinesh is an Amharic word meaning “marvellous.” According to Lucy mission chief investigator Hal Levison, the asteroid has lived up to its name. “When Lucy was first chosen for takeoff, our itinerary called for passing seven asteroids. “We’ve turned it up to 11 with the addition of Dinkinesh, two Trojan moons, and now this satellite,” Levison said in a NASA news release announcing the discovery on Thursday.
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However, the binary pair’s discovery is not entirely unexpected. Through Lucy’s instruments, the brightness of the asteroid was being tracked over time. This made the other members of Lucy’s team question if Dinkinesh was a binary system in the weeks before the meeting. Now, they calculate that the smaller body is roughly 220 meters in size and the larger body is approximately 790 meters at its broadest based on preliminary examination of the earliest photographs that are available.
Although Lucy’s rendezvous with Dinkinesh resulted in an intriguing discovery, its primary purpose was to test the spacecraft during flight. specifically an evaluation of the mechanisms that enable Lucy to monitor an asteroid on its own while it speeds by at thousands of kilometers per hour.
