Overview

• Lucy spacecraft passed within 600 miles of asteroid Donaldjohanson on April 20, 2025, capturing detailed images using its L’LORRI camera.
• The asteroid, measuring approximately 5 miles long and 2 miles wide, was confirmed to be a peanut-shaped contact binary formed by the collision of two smaller bodies.
• This flyby served as a critical dress rehearsal for Lucy’s primary mission to explore Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids starting in 2027.
• Additional data from Lucy’s instruments, including L’Ralph and L’TES, will be downlinked in the coming week to refine analyses of the asteroid’s shape and composition.
• Donaldjohanson is the second asteroid Lucy has visited, following its 2023 flyby of Dinkinesh, which also revealed a contact-binary structure.