{"id":285389,"date":"2025-09-17T01:01:58","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T15:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/solar-system\/regions-on-asteroid-explored-by-nasas-lucy-mission-get-official-names\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T01:01:58","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T15:01:58","slug":"regions-on-asteroid-explored-by-nasas-lucy-mission-get-official-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=285389","title":{"rendered":"Regions on Asteroid Explored by NASA\u2019s Lucy Mission Get Official Names"},"content":{"rendered":"

The IAU (International Astronomical Union), an international non-governmental research organization and global naming authority for celestial objects, has approved official names for features on Donaldjohanson, an asteroid NASA\u2019s Lucy spacecraft visited on April 20. In a nod to the fossilized inspiration for the names of the asteroid and spacecraft, the IAU\u2019s selections recognize significant sites and discoveries on Earth that further our understanding of humanity\u2019s origins.<\/p>\n

The asteroid was named in 2015 after paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson, discoverer of one of the most famous fossils ever found of a female hominin, or ancient human ancestor, nicknamed Lucy. Just as the Lucy fossil revolutionized our understanding of human evolution, NASA\u2019s Lucy mission aims to revolutionize our understanding of solar system evolution by studying at least eight Trojan asteroids that share an orbit with Jupiter.<\/p>\n

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\"The<\/a><\/figure>
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Postcard commemorating NASA\u2019s Lucy spacecraft April 20, 2025, encounter with the asteroid Donaldjohanson.<\/div>\n
NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Donaldjohanson, located in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, was a target for Lucy because it offered an opportunity for a comprehensive \u201cdress rehearsal\u201d for Lucy\u2019s main mission, with all three of its science instruments carrying out observation sequences very similar to the ones that will occur at the Trojans.<\/p>\n

After exploring the asteroid and getting to see its features up close, the Lucy science and engineering team proposed to name the asteroid\u2019s surface features in recognition of significant paleoanthropological sites and discoveries, which the IAU accepted.<\/p>\n

The smaller lobe is called Afar Lobus, after the Ethiopian region where Lucy and other hominin fossils were found. The larger lobe is named Olduvai Lobus, after the Tanzanian river gorge that has also yielded many important hominin discoveries.<\/p>\n

The asteroid\u2019s neck, Windover Collum, which joins those two lobes, is named after the Windover Archeological Site near Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida \u2014 where NASA\u2019s Lucy mission launched in 2021. Human remains and artifacts recovered from that site revolutionized our understanding of the people who lived in Florida around 7,300 years ago.<\/p>\n

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\"The<\/a><\/figure>
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Officially recognized names of geologic features on the asteroid Donaldjohanson.<\/div>\n
NASA Goddard\/SwRI\/Johns Hopkins APL<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Two smooth areas on the asteroid\u2019s neck are named Hadar Regio, marking the specific site of Johanson\u2019s discovery of the Lucy fossil, and Minatogawa Regio, after the location where the oldest known hominins in Japan were found. Select boulders and craters on Donaldjohanson are named after notable fossils ranging from pre-Homo sapiens hominins to ancient modern humans. The IAU also approved a coordinate system for mapping features on this uniquely shaped small world.<\/p>\n

As of Sept. 9, the Lucy spacecraft was nearly 300 million miles (480 million km) from the Sun en route to its August 2027 encounter with its first Trojan asteroid called Eurybates. This places Lucy about three quarters of the way through the main asteroid belt. Since its encounter with Donaldjohanson, Lucy has been cruising without passing close to any other asteroids, and without requiring any trajectory correction maneuvers.<\/p>\n

The team continues to carefully monitor the instruments and spacecraft as it travels farther from the Sun into a cooler environment.<\/p>\n

Stay tuned at nasa.gov\/lucy<\/a> for more updates as Lucy continues its journey toward the never-before-explored Jupiter Trojan asteroids.<\/p>\n

By Katherine Kretke<\/strong>
Southwest Research Institute<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The IAU (International Astronomical Union), a global naming authority for celestial objects, has approved official names for features on Donaldjohanson, an asteroid NASA\u2019s Lucy spacecraft visited on April 20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"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":[16413,15614,15902,15653,15622,15929,15685,15598,15610,18167],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-285389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asteroids","category-goddard-space-flight-center","category-lucy","category-missions","category-nasa-centers-facilities","category-nasa-directorates","category-planetary-science-division","category-science-mission-directorate","category-the-solar-system","category-trojan-asteroids"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285389","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\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=285389"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":285562,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285389\/revisions\/285562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=285389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=285389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=285389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}