NASA’s Lucy probe just completed its first flyby of the asteroid Dinkinesh, discovering it is actually a binary pair.
NASA’s Lucy probe has completed one of its first flybys, skimming past the asteroid Dinkinesh on its way to other targets. While the flyby was expected to give us a photo of the asteroid, it also revealed a smaller, satellite asteroid that is orbiting the larger Lucy target, revealing that it’s actually a binary pair, not a single asteroid.
Dinkinesh is one of several main belt asteroids that NASA and other agencies are working to study more in-depth going forward. While Lucy isn’t spending a ton of time looking at Dinkinesh, astronomers were astounded to learn that the asteroid has a friend, confirming some data that Lucy had been capturing on its approach.
