One other Shock From NASA’s Lucy Asteroid Encounter: “We By no means Suspected Something So Weird!”

NASA’s Lucy Shock Commentary of 1st-ever Contact Binary Orbiting Asteroid

It seems there’s extra to the “marvelous” asteroid Dinkinesh and its newly found satellite tv for pc than first meets the attention. As NASA’s Lucy spacecraft continued to return knowledge of its first asteroid encounter on November 1, 2023, the group was shocked to find that Dinkinesh’s unanticipated satellite tv for pc is, itself, a contact binary – that’s, it’s manufactured from two smaller objects touching one another.

Preliminary Observations and Surprises

Within the first downlinked photos of Dinkinesh and its satellite tv for pc, which have been taken at closest method, the 2 lobes of the contact binary occurred to lie one behind the opposite from Lucy’s perspective. Solely when the group downlinked further photos, captured within the minutes across the encounter, was the true nature of this object revealed.

A diagram exhibiting the trajectory of the NASA Lucy spacecraft (pink) throughout its flyby of the asteroid Dinkinesh and its satellite tv for pc (grey). “A” marks the placement of the spacecraft at 12:55 p.m. EDT (1655 UTC) on November 1, 2023, and an inset reveals the L’LORRI picture captured at the moment. “B” marks the spacecraft’s place a couple of minutes later at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 UTC), and the inset reveals the corresponding L’LORRI view at the moment. Credit score: Total graphic, NASA/Goddard/SwRI; Inset “A,” NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL/NOIRLab; Inset “B,” NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL

“Contact binaries appear to be pretty widespread within the photo voltaic system,” mentioned John Spencer, Lucy deputy venture scientist, of the Boulder, Colorado, department of the San-Antonio-based Southwest Analysis Institute. “We haven’t seen many up-close, and we’ve by no means seen one orbiting one other asteroid. We’d been puzzling over odd variations in Dinkinesh’s brightness that we noticed on method, which gave us a touch that Dinkinesh may need a moon of some type, however we by no means suspected something so weird!”

Mission Targets and Sudden Findings

Lucy’s main objective is to survey the never-before-visited Jupiter Trojan asteroids. This primary encounter with a small, most important belt asteroid was solely added to the mission in January 2023, primarily to function an in-flight check of the system that enables the spacecraft to frequently observe and picture its asteroid targets because it flies previous at excessive velocity. The superb efficiency of that system at Dinkinesh allowed the group to seize a number of views on the system, which enabled the group to higher perceive the asteroids’ shapes and make this surprising discovery.

NASA’s Lucy mission, which launched on October 16, 2021, for the primary reconnaissance of the Trojans, a inhabitants of primitive asteroids orbiting in tandem with Jupiter. On this artist’s idea (to not scale), the Lucy spacecraft is flying by Eurybates, one of many six numerous and scientifically necessary Trojans to be studied. Credit score: Southwest Analysis Institute

“It’s puzzling, to say the least,” mentioned Hal Levison, principal investigator for Lucy, additionally from Southwest Analysis Institute. “I’d have by no means anticipated a system that appears like this. Particularly, I don’t perceive why the 2 elements of the satellite tv for pc have comparable sizes. That is going to be enjoyable for the scientific group to determine.”

This second picture was taken about 6 minutes after closest method from a distance of roughly 1,010 miles (1,630 km). The spacecraft traveled round 960 miles (1,500 km) between the 2 launched photos.

Persevering with the Journey By House

“It’s really marvelous when nature surprises us with a brand new puzzle,” mentioned Tom Statler, Lucy program scientist from NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Nice science pushes us to ask questions that we by no means knew we would have liked to ask.”

The group is constant to downlink and course of the rest of the encounter knowledge from the spacecraft. Dinkinesh and its satellite tv for pc are the primary two of 11 asteroids that Lucy plans to discover over its 12-year journey. After skimming the interior fringe of the principle asteroid belt, Lucy is now heading again towards Earth for a gravity help in December 2024. That shut flyby will propel the spacecraft again by means of the principle asteroid belt, the place it should observe asteroid Donaldjohanson in 2025, after which on to the Trojan asteroids in 2027.

NASA’s Lucy Mission

Lucy’s principal investigator relies out of the Boulder, Colorado, department of Southwest Analysis Institute (SwRI), headquartered in San Antonio. NASA’s Goddard House Flight Heart in Greenbelt, Maryland, gives general mission administration, techniques engineering, and security and mission assurance. Lockheed Martin House in Littleton, Colorado, constructed and operates the spacecraft. Lucy is the thirteenth mission in NASA’s Discovery Program. NASA’s Marshall House Flight Heart in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Discovery Program for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.