NASA snaps detailed photos of ‘strikingly complicated’ asteroid

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft had its second rendezvous with an asteroid over the weekend, this time with the uniquely named Donaldjohanson space rock. On April 20, the probe’s Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI) traveled within about 600 miles of the elongated asteroid while snapping images at roughly two-second intervals. The results showcase the asteroid’s “strikingly complicated geology,” according to Hal Levison, Lucy’s principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute.

“As we study the complex structures in detail, they will reveal important information about the building blocks and collisional processes that formed the planets in our Solar System,” Levison added in a NASA statement on April 21.

The asteroid Donaldjohanson as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI) on NASA’s Lucy spacecraft during its flyby. This timelapse shows images captured approximately every 2 seconds beginning at 1:50 p.m. EDT (17:50 UTC), April 20, 2025. The asteroid rotates very slowly; its apparent rotation here is due to the spacecraft’s motion as it flies by Donaldjohanson at a distance of 1,000 to 660 miles (1,600 to 1,100 km). The spacecraft’s closest approach distance was 600 miles (960 km), but the images shown were taken approximately 40 seconds beforehand, the nearest ones at a distance of 660 miles (1100 km). Credit: NASA / Goddard / SwRI / Johns Hopkins APL

The first close look at Donaldjohanson appears to confirm astronomers’ previous observations, particularly its 10-day brightness variation period. The photos depict an elongated asteroid that likely formed from after the collision of two smaller bodies. That said, researchers noted the unique neck shape connecting Donaldjohanson’s two lobes.

The asteroid also appears to be larger than initial estimates—measuring about 5 miles long and 2 miles wide. Donaldjohanson was actually wider than Lucy’s field of view, and it will take about a week for the remaining data to downlink to Earth. This additional information will be parsed from information collected by L’Ralph color imager and infrared spectrometer as well as the L’TES thermal infrared spectrometer.

Lucy’s latest asteroid encounter took place roughly 16 months after passing within 230 miles of Dinkinesh (aka “Dinky”) and its “baby asteroid” satellite, Selam. Donaldjohanson is the second of 10 asteroids scheduled to be studied on Lucy’s 12-year-long mission.

“The potential to really open a new window into the history of our solar system when Lucy gets to the Trojan asteroids is immense,” said Tom Statler, a NASA program scientist for the Lucy mission.
Lucy will now spend most of the rest of 2025 hurtling through the solar system’s main asteroid belt as it closes in on its main target–the Jupiter Trojan asteroid Eurybates. The spacecraft’s final flyby is on track to take place in August 2027.

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