NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft Captures First Images of Asteroid Donaldjohanson

The asteroid flyby on April 20, 2025, will serve as a crucial rehearsal for Lucy's mission to explore Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids.

The Lucy spacecraft has captured its first images of the main-belt asteroid Donaldjohanson from a distance of 45 million miles (70 million kilometers).
Donaldjohanson, named after the anthropologist who discovered the fossil Lucy, is approximately 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) in diameter and orbits in the inner asteroid belt.
Lucy will pass within 596 miles (960 kilometers) of Donaldjohanson on April 20, 2025, as part of a test run for its primary mission to study Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids.
The spacecraft previously imaged the asteroid Dinkinesh and its moon Selam in November 2023 and has completed two Earth gravity assists to increase its speed.
The mission aims to study the Trojan asteroids, which are considered remnants from the early solar system and may provide insight into planetary formation processes.