NASA’s “Lucy” spacecraft flew by the “Dinkinesh” asteroid and discovered a 220-meter-wide “little follower”

According to a recent press release issued by NASA, after the “Lucy” spacecraft flew by “Dinkinesh”, it accidentally discovered that the asteroid still has A “little follower” is a very tiny asteroid.

NaijaTechNews learned from reports that the “Lucy” flew by the “Dinkinesh” asteroid on November 1 and captured a picture of the pair of asteroids when it was about 435 kilometers away from the asteroid. and photos from small satellites.

The data and images transmitted back to Earth by the spacecraft confirmed that “Dinkinesh” is about 790 meters in diameter, while the size of the satellite orbiting it at close range is only 220 meters.

The encounter was primarily a flight test of the spacecraft, focusing on testing the terminal tracking system, a system that would allow Lucy to autonomously track an asteroid as it passes by at 10,000 miles per hour.

Keith Noll, Lucy project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said:

We know this will be the smallest main-belt asteroid ever seen at close range. The fact that it’s two makes it even more exciting. In some ways, these asteroids look similar to the near-Earth asteroid binaries Didymos and Dimorphos seen by DART, but there are also some very interesting differences that we will study.