NASA Lucy Spaceship Lighting up photos from the latest asteroid flyby, we revealed a long, lumpy space lock that resembles a strangely shaped peanut.
The Space Agency released the image of the day after a close approach at speeds of Monday Over 30,000 miles. It was considered a dress rehearsal for a more important asteroid encounter close to Jupiter.
The asteroid is bigger than scientists had expected, about five miles long and two miles wide at its widest point, resembling a transformed peanut. It’s long enough that the spaceship couldn’t fully capture it with the first downloaded image.
NASA also releases time-lapse of captured images about every two seconds, indicating that the asteroid is spinning very slowly due to the spacecraft’s movement as the spacecraft flies.
According to NASA, the data returned next week should help clarify the shape of the asteroid.
Lucy passed within 600 miles of the harmless asteroid known as Donald Johansson on Sunday in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is named after a paleontologist who discovered fossil Lucy in Ethiopia 50 years ago.
“The asteroid Donald Johansson has an incredibly complex geology,” said Hal Levison, chief investigator at Lucy at the Southwest Research Institute, in a statement. “A detailed study of complex structures reveals important information about the building blocks and collision processes that formed planets in the solar system.”
That’s what the spaceship was like Released in 2021 To study the immature so-called Trojan asteroids near Jupiter. Eight Trojan Flybys are planned until 2033.
NASA
“These early images of Donald Johansson once again demonstrate the incredible capabilities of the Lucy spacecraft as an engine for discovery,” said Tom Staller, a program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington, in a statement. “When Lucy reaches the Trojan asteroid, the chances that she may truly open a new window into the history of our solar system are immeasurable.”
The spaceship is named after a 3.2 million-year-old skeletal ruin found in Ethiopia, which was named after the 1967 Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.” This led NASA to stand up to space, with band members’ lyrics and words of wisdom from other famous people engraved on the plaque. The spacecraft also carried discs made of lab-grown diamonds as one of its scientific instruments.
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