NASA’s Lucy spacecraft has made a groundbreaking discovery during its mission, shedding light on the complex processes occurring within a small asteroid system. The spacecraft’s encounter with the asteroid Dinkinesh revealed unexpected findings, including the presence of a natural satellite, Selam, which was identified as two objects fused together.
The encounter with Dinkinesh served as an engineering test for Lucy’s terminal tracking system, demonstrating the spacecraft’s ability to autonomously locate and maintain focus on an asteroid. The mission’s success exceeded initial stability requirements, producing high-resolution images throughout the encounter.
At the recent Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas, mission members presented preliminary results from the encounter, unveiling a wealth of data. Dinkinesh and Selam were found to be of similar age, exhibiting comparable equatorial ridges indicating mass shedding and re-accretion. The space rocks also displayed evidence of impacts, leaving behind detectable craters and suggesting their origins as fragments of larger rocks.
Simone Marchi, the deputy principal investigator of the mission, emphasized the inevitability of larger objects breaking into smaller fragments, highlighting the significance of these findings in understanding the dynamics of asteroid systems.
The mission’s success in capturing detailed insights into the asteroid system’s composition and history marks a significant milestone in space exploration, providing valuable data for scientists to unravel the mysteries of celestial bodies.
