Tag: Lucy probe

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Universe Today

Lucy probe snaps closeup of weirdly shaped asteroid

Closeup of asteroid Donaldjohanson
NASA's Lucy probe captured this view of the asteroid Donaldjohanson from about 660 miles away. (NASA / Goddard / SwRI / JHUAPL / NOIRLab)

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft made a successful flyby of the second asteroid on its must-see list over the weekend, and sent back imagery documenting the elongated object’s bizarre double-lobed shape.

It turns out that asteroid Donaldjohanson — which was named after the anthropologist who discovered the fossils of a human ancestor called Lucy — is what’s known as a contact binary, with a couple of ridges in its narrow neck. In today’s image advisory, NASA compares the ridged structure to a pair of nested ice cream cones.

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NASA backs two new missions to asteroids

Lucy and Psyche missions
Artist’s conceptions show the Lucy probe visiting a rocky asteroid at left, and the Psyche probe visiting a metallic asteroid at right. (NASA Illustrations)

Today is a great day for asteroid miners: NASA announced that it will provide full funding under its Discovery Program for two missions focusing on different types of asteroids.

A mission called Lucy will launch in 2021 to study a smorgasbord of asteroids, including one in the main asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter, plus six others among the swarms of space rocks caught in Jupiter’s orbit.

Another mission called Psyche will take off in 2023 to visit a type of asteroid that’s never been seen up close before: a huge metallic object called 16 Psyche that’s similar in composition to Earth’s core.

“This is what Discovery Program missions are all about – boldly going to places we’ve never been to enable groundbreaking science,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA Headquarters’ Science Mission Directorate, said today in a news release.

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