Pictures sent by Lucy mission shows that the asteroid Dinkinesh has its own moon

On November 1, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft conducted its first flyby since its launch, passing by the asteroid known as Dinkinesh. To the surprise of many, it was revealed that Dinkinesh is not a single asteroid but is actually composed of two tiny space rocks. This unique occurrence marked Lucy’s flyby of two small asteroids in one pass, making it a remarkable event in space exploration.

Lucy passed by the small asteroid Dinkinesh, also known as Dinky, and transmitted images back to Earth. These images unveiled the presence of a smaller space rock orbiting Dinkinesh, essentially acting as its “satellite.” NASA scientists were astonished by this discovery, describing it as “marvelous.”

Han Levinson, the principal investigator for Lucy from the Southwest Research Institute, commented on the discovery, stating, “Dinkinesh really did live up to its name; this is marvelous.” The name “Dinkinesh” comes from the Amharic language and means “marvelous.”

While this revelation may have been a surprise, the Lucy team had previously speculated that Dinkinesh might be a binary unit, consisting of two extremely tiny space rocks. These suspicions were based on readings from Lucy’s instruments, which measured changes in brightness over time. The images from the flyby confirmed these suspicions.

Dinkinesh is considered a close binary, and preliminary analysis of the initial images suggests that the larger body is approximately 0.5 miles (790 meters) at its widest, while the smaller one measures about 0.15 miles (220 meters) in size, according to NASA.

This encounter served as an in-flight test for Lucy’s systems, particularly the terminal tracking system that allows the spacecraft to autonomously track an asteroid while traveling at 10,000 mph. Tom Kennedy, a guidance and navigation engineer at Lockheed Martin, described the images as “awesome” and confirmed that the terminal tracking system functioned as intended, even when faced with a more challenging target than expected.

The Lucy team will spend the next week downloading and analyzing the data received from the spacecraft during the flyby. This data will help evaluate the spacecraft’s performance during the encounter and prepare for the next close-up observation of the main belt asteroid, Donaldjohanson, scheduled for 2025.