NASA revealed a new surprise related to space exploration, sparked by the visit made by the Lucy spacecraft this week to the asteroid Dinkenish, where scientists were surprised that the asteroid is not alone and has a small moon orbiting it.
The discovery was made during a flyby on Wednesday, November 1, near Dinkenish, 300 million miles away in the main asteroid belt beyond Mars. The spacecraft captured an image of the pair when it was about 270 miles away.
In data and images sent back to Earth, the spacecraft confirmed that Dinkenish is only half a mile (790 meters) across. The closely orbiting Moon is only one-tenth of a mile (220 metres) in size.
NASA sent the Lucy spacecraft to Dinkenish as a training exercise for larger, more mysterious asteroids near Jupiter.
The spacecraft launched in October 2021, and will reach the first so-called Trojan asteroids in 2027, and explore them for at least six years. The original target list of seven asteroids now stands at 11.
The name Dinkinesh means “You are wonderful” in the Amharic language of Ethiopia. It is also the Amharic name for Lucy, the 3.2 million-year-old remains of a human ancestor found in Ethiopia in 1970, after which the spacecraft is named.
“Dinkenish really lives up to his name, which is great,” Hal Levison, a senior research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, said in a statement.
Does anyone else think the tiny moon of the asteroid NASA just photographed is INSANELY CUTE AND ADORABLE? pic.twitter.com/WgQ3MDjKsq
— Hard Drive Noises (@RogueLodgeGames) November 5, 2023
