The discovery of the Lucy probe is, technically speaking, a binary asteroid pair: a small asteroid that has another asteroid in its orbit. Dinky, which is actually called Dinkinesh, and its moon were discovered during a flyby by Lucy. “A binary was certainly a possibility. But we didn’t expect it, it’s really cool,” says Jessica Sunshine, planetary scientist at the University of Maryland.
The team did not expect to make any discoveries with this flyby, as the maneuver was intended to be a test before moving on to definitive flights to better explore the Trojan asteroids, in orbit around the Sun and close to Jupiter. The researchers wanted to know if Lucy would be able to track extremely fast-moving objects and concluded that she could.
Regarding Dinky and its Moon, NASA has already publicly revealed some images and hopes to conduct a full investigation as soon as it receives more data. At this stage, only a third of the information collected has been transmitted to our planet, reports the Engadget.
Hal Levinson, a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute and leader of the Luxy mission, confirms that there are more images to be released and that the shape of the second asteroid is “really bizarre”. Researchers estimate that about 15% of near-Earth asteroids have a small asteroid accompanying them.
Lucy will continue her mission and should make contact with the Jupiter Trojans in 2025.
2023-11-06 09:44:00
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