Topline<\/p>\n
NASA\u2019s Lucy spacecraft has successfully completed a flyby of a three-mile-wide asteroid between Mars and Jupiter, sending back a video<\/a> composed of 37 images. Called (52246) Donaldjohanson, it\u2019s the second of 11 asteroids the spacecraft will visit in the remaining eight years of its epic mission.<\/p>\n The asteroid Donaldjohanson as seen by NASA\u2019s Lucy spacecraft during its flyby on April 20, 2025. <\/p>\n NASA\/Goddard\/SwRI\/Johns Hopkins APL <\/p>\n Key Facts<\/p>\n According to NASA<\/a>, Lucy flew within 596 miles (960 kilometers) of the three-mile-wide asteroid on Sunday, April 20, at 1:51 p.m. EDT. Lucy had to shield its sensitive instruments from intense sunlight during the flyby. It ceased tracking the asteroid 40 seconds before its closest approach to prevent its cameras from being damaged.<\/p>\n \u201cInitial information indicates that the spacecraft is in good health,\u201d stated NASA in a blog post after the spacecraft reestablished contact with Earth a few hours after its closest approach. \u201cThe team has commanded the spacecraft to start sending the data collected during the encounter back to Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n Donaldjohanson is thought to have been sliced off a bigger asteroid about 150 million years ago and rotate every 251 hours. It\u2019s thought to be carbon-rich and be about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) in diameter. It orbits the sun in the solar system\u2019s Main Asteroid Belt.<\/p>\n The aim of Lucy\u2019s flyby was to test the spacecraft and make sure its scientists are well prepared for the mission\u2019s main target \u2014 the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, which it will make its first visit to in 2027. No Trojan asteroid has been visited before.<\/p>\n Trojan asteroids are a group of primordial bodies that orbit the sun in two distinct groups, both behind and ahead of Jupiter. Often called \u201cJupiter’s children,\u201d Trojans are thought to be fossils from the formation and evolution of the planets and the solar system.<\/p>\n The asteroid Donaldjohanson as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L\u2019LORRI) on NASA\u2019s … More Lucy spacecraft during its flyby. This timelapse shows images captured approximately every 2 seconds beginning at 1:50 p.m. EDT (17:50 UTC), April 20, 2025.<\/p>\n NASA\/Goddard\/SwRI\/Johns Hopkins APL <\/p>\n Lucy’s Journey So Far<\/p>\n This is the second asteroid flyby by Lucy since its launch in 2021. The last one, Dinkinesh, was imaged<\/a> in Nov. 2023, after which it was realized to have a satellite asteroid in orbit. It was later named Selam. Donaldjohanson is thought to be a relatively young object that periodically brightens and dims every 10 days, which suggests that it’s an elongated shape and rotates.<\/p>\n \u201cThe warm-up asteroids are proving to be quite interesting in their own right,\u201d said<\/a> Dr. Hal Levison, principal investigator of the Lucy mission at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, who called Donaldjohanson a \u201cpeculiar\u201d object.<\/p>\n What’s Next For Lucy<\/p>\n During its mission, Lucy will orbit the sun six times and visit eight Trojan asteroids through 2033. Its next target is Eurybates and its satellite Queta, which it will fly by on Aug. 12, 2027. A month later, on Sept. 15, 2027, it will fly by Polymele and its satellite, with further flybys in 2088 and 2033.<\/p>\n Although it will return to Earth for gravity assists during its mission, Lucy will never come back for good. Instead, it will travel between the Trojan asteroids and the orbit of the Earth for millions of years. To that end, it contains a time capsule with messages<\/a> from people including Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, Martin Luther King Jr. and all four members of The Beatles.<\/p>\n Background<\/p>\n The Lucy spacecraft is named after the nickname given to the fossilized hominin \u2014 a human ancestor \u2014 discovered in Afar, Ethiopia, in 1974, in sediment known to be 3.2 million years old. Named for the Beatles song \u201cLucy in the Sky with Diamonds,\u201d in Ethiopia, the fossil is called Dinkinesh, which led to the name given to the NASA spacecraft\u2019s first target. Asteroid (52246) Donaldjohanson is named after the paleoanthropologist who unearthed Lucy\/Dinkinesh just over fifty years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n Further ReadingForbesNorthern Lights Tonight: How To Take Photos With A Phone \u2014 Expert TipsBy Jamie Carter<\/a>ForbesLyrid Meteor Shower \u2018Fireballs\u2019 To Peak Monday \u2014 Exactly When To WatchBy Jamie Carter<\/a>ForbesHalley\u2019s Comet Meteor Shower Starts This Weekend \u2014 Here’s When To WatchBy Jamie Carter<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Topline NASA\u2019s Lucy spacecraft has successfully completed a flyby of a three-mile-wide asteroid between Mars and Jupiter, sending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[22354,22352,1698,22348,22349,22347,22351,70,12884,22350,22353,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-39331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-asteroid-donaldjohanson-flyby","9":"tag-asteroid-exploration","10":"tag-asteroids","11":"tag-donaldjohanson-asteroid","12":"tag-jupiter-trojan-asteroids","13":"tag-lucy-spacecraft","14":"tag-main-belt-asteroid-flyby","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-solar-system","17":"tag-swri-lucy-mission","18":"tag-trojan-asteroid-mission","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114378065090511019","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}