Lucy Reveals Rare Contact Binary Orbiting Asteroid—A First in Space Exploration
Primary asteroid Dinkinesh and its companion satellite, recently discovered to be a contact binary.
Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/SwRI/JHUAPL
Today, the Lucy mission announced that the secondary asteroid in the Dinkinesh system is in fact a contact binary asteroid itself! This was discovered using images before and after Lucy’s closest approach to the Dinkinesh system that were downlinked from the spacecraft over the few days following the flyby. This is the first observation of a contact binary asteroid orbiting another asteroid! The Lucy flight dynamics team at KinetX continues to analyze the trajectory of the spacecraft and system throughout closest approach to refine the relative position of the spacecraft. More information about the discovery can be found science.nasa.gov.
