See it: NASA's Lucy spacecraft sends back first close-up images of asteroid Donaldjohanson
This 150-million-year old space rock may look like a badly-shaped potato but studying it could help scientists understand how our solar system formed. NASA's Lucy spacecraft is set to arrive at its first Trojan asteroid in 2027.
Where is the asteroid Dinkinesh?
FILE: An artist visualization overlays images taken by NASA's Lucy spacecraft of the asteroid Dinkinesh. Lucy made a close flyby of the asteroid on Nov. 1.
NASA's Lucy spacecraft flew about 600 miles above an asteroid named Donaldjohanson on Easter Sunday, sending back the first close-ups of this oblong, potato-like object believed to be about 150 million years old.
United Launch Alliance successfully launched Lucy on Oct. 16, 2021, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. After several gravity assists, the spacecraft is now in deep space, testing out its instruments on a few never-before-seen asteroids as it makes its way to the Trojan asteroids associated with Jupiter.
COULD SEASHELLS HELP REPLACE PLASTICS? CALIFORNIA RESEARCHERS THINK SO
After its first flyby of asteroid Dinkinesh in November, a main asteroid belt object, Lucy successfully made the second flyby of its mission, visiting Donaldjohanson on Sunday. This second encounter enabled Lucy's team to run a full test of its capabilities before heading on to study the Trojan asteroids.
An image of asteroid Donaldjohanssen taken on April 20, 2025 by NASA's Lucy spacecraft
(NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL/NOIRLab)
About 24 hours later, NASA and Lucy's team at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado, shared the first images of asteroid Donaldjohanson.
"Asteroid Donaldjohanson has strikingly complicated geology," Lucy Principal Investigator Hal Levison, with SwRI, said. "As we study the complex structures in detail, they will reveal important information about the building blocks and collisional processes that formed the planets in our Solar System."
The asteroid Donaldjohanson as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI) on NASA’s Lucy spacecraft during its flyby. This timelapse shows images captured approximately every 2 seconds on April 20, 2025. The asteroid rotates very slowly; its apparent rotation here is due to the spacecraft’s motion as it flies by Donaldjohanson at a distance of 1,000 to 660 miles.
(NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL)
The moving image above was pieced together with images taken about every 2 seconds using Lucy's Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager during the flyby.
Asteroid Donaldjohanson is named after Donald Johanson, the American paleoanthropologist who uncovered the skeletal remains of Lucy, one of humanity's oldest known ancestors. The skeleton found in Ethiopia in 1974 was named after The Beatles' song "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" after a night of celebrating the discovery while listening to the band's songs.
Lucy will continue traveling through the main asteroid belt before encountering its first Jupiter Trojan asteroid in August 2027.
Associated with Jupiter because the asteroids are on the same orbital path, two groups of Trojan asteroids zoom ahead of Jupiter and trail behind the gas giant. These asteroids are made up of the same materials as the giant planets of our solar system: Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus.