{"id":205394,"date":"2025-04-24T05:18:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T19:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?guid=c81be038f5b1f0fcc7feb9b64fd9a43e"},"modified":"2025-04-24T05:18:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T19:18:14","slug":"nasas-lucy-spacecraft-images-asteroid-donaldjohanson-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=205394","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Lucy Spacecraft Images Asteroid Donaldjohanson"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Asteroid<\/a><\/figure>
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The asteroid Donaldjohanson as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L\u2019LORRI). This is one of the most detailed images returned by NASA\u2019s Lucy spacecraft during its flyby. This image was taken at 1:51 p.m. EDT (17:51 UTC), April 20, 2025, near closest approach, from a range of approximately 660 miles (1,100 km). The spacecraft\u2019s closest approach distance was 600 miles (960 km), but the image shown was taken approximately 40 seconds beforehand. The image has been sharpened and processed to enhance contrast.<\/div>\n
NASA\/Goddard\/SwRI\/Johns Hopkins APL\/NOIRLab<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

NASA\u2019s Lucy<\/a> spacecraft took this image of the main belt asteroid Donaldjohanson during its flyby on April 20, 2025, showing the elongated contact binary (an object formed when two smaller bodies collide). This was Lucy\u2019s second flyby in the spacecraft\u2019s 12-year mission. <\/p>\n

Launched on Oct. 16, 2021, Lucy is the first space mission sent to explore a diverse population of small bodies known as the Jupiter Trojan asteroids. These remnants of our early solar system are trapped on stable orbits associated with \u2013 but not close to \u2013 the giant planet Jupiter. Lucy will explore a record-breaking number of asteroids, flying by three asteroids in the solar system\u2019s main asteroid belt, and by eight Trojan asteroids that share an orbit around the Sun with Jupiter. April 20, 2025 marked Lucy’s second flyby. The spacecraft’s next target is Trojan asteroid Eurybates and its satellite Queta in Aug. 2027. <\/p>\n

Lucy is named for a fossilized skeleton of a prehuman ancestor. This flyby marked the first time NASA sent a spacecraft to a planetary body named after a living person. Asteroid Donaldjohanson was unnamed before becoming a <\/a>target. The name Donaldjohanson was chosen in honor of the paleoanthropologist who discovered the Lucy fossil, Dr. Donald Johanson.<\/p>\n

Learn more about Lucy\u2019s flyby of asteroid Donaldjohanson.<\/a><\/p>\n

Image credit: NASA\/Goddard\/SwRI\/Johns Hopkins APL\/NOIRLab<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASA\u2019s Lucy spacecraft took this image of the main belt asteroid Donaldjohanson during its flyby on April 20, 2025, showing the elongated contact binary (an object formed when two smaller bodies collide). This was Lucy\u2019s second flyby in the spacecraft\u2019s 12-year mission.\u00a0 Launched on Oct. 16, 2021, Lucy is the first space mission sent to [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16413,15902],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asteroids","category-lucy"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=205394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":205395,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205394\/revisions\/205395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=205394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=205394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=205394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}