NASA flyby of “Dinky” asteroid reveals hidden moon

0 79

An asteroid affectionately known as “Dinky” has been tumbling through space with an even dinkier companion hidden behind it, surprising new images from NASA’s Lucy spacecraft reveal.

Zooming past the asteroid at 10,000 mph (16,000 km/h) on Nov. 1, Lucy made its closest-ever observations of Dinkinesh (“Dinky”), an asteroid that Lucy has been tracking since the spacecraft’s launch in 2021. Flying within roughly 270 miles (430 kilometers) of Dinkinesh, Lucy revealed that the space rock isn’t just one asteroid, as initially thought, but a binary pair made of a larger, half-mile wide (790 meters) rock and a 0.15 mile wide (220 m) “moon” orbiting closely around it.

Source link

Denial of responsibility! YoursTelecast is an automatic aggregator of the all world’s media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.
Leave A Reply

Your email address will not be published.