Overview

• NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured high-resolution images of asteroid Donaldjohanson during its April 20 flyby, passing within 600 miles at 30,000 mph.
• The asteroid, located in the main asteroid belt, measures approximately five miles long and two miles wide and features a distinctive peanut shape formed by a past collision.
• This flyby served as a 'full dress rehearsal' for Lucy’s primary mission to study Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids, with its first encounter scheduled for 2027.
• Initial images reveal Donaldjohanson’s complex geology, which scientists aim to analyze further as additional data is downlinked this week.
• Donaldjohanson, named after the paleoanthropologist who discovered the Lucy fossil, is the second asteroid Lucy has studied since its 2021 launch.