Dinkinesh Family Portrait (IMAGE)

Southwest Research Institute

Dinkinesh Family Portrait

Caption

This image shows the asteroid Dinkinesh and its satellite as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI). As NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft departed the system, the SwRI-led Lucy team captured this image at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 UTC) Nov. 1, 2023, about six minutes after closest approach. From a range of approximately 1,010 miles (1,630 km), the satellite is revealed to be a contact binary, the first time such an object has been seen orbiting another asteroid.

Credit

NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL

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