NASA has released the first full image of the Donaldjohanson asteroid nearly three months after the Lucy spacecraft completed its second flyby.
The pictures were taken by the probe’s L’LORRI imager a few minutes before its closest approach to the peanut-shaped space rock on April 20. “This successful dress rehearsal gives the team high confidence that both the spacecraft and the team are well prepared for the main events: the upcoming encounters with the Jupiter Trojan asteroids,” NASA said in a statement.
Astronomers have learned from the previous flyby that the asteroidwhich measures eight kilometres long and 3.5 kilometres wide, has two lobes joined by a narrow neck and it rotates very slowly. The flyby, which brought Lucy as close as 960 kilometres to the asteroid, was its second since launch in October 2021.
The spacecraft, NASA says, is currently in a quiet cruise period as it is moving away from the Sun at 50,000 km per hour toward a cooler and dimmer region of the outer solar system.
Lucy’s mission will begin when it reaches the Trojan asteroids in Jupiter’s orbit two years from now. Trojan asteroids are the swarm of space rocks that follow and lead Jupiter in its orbit and are believe to hold clues of the early solar system.
The probe’s first encounter will be with the asteroid Eurybates in August 2027. According to NASA, Lucy will conduct four encounters, observing at least six asteroids including two satellites discovered by the mission team in less than 15 months.
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(Image: NASA)
