Main belt asteroid 52246 Donaldjohanson is set 8 kilometers prolonged and 3.5 kilometers across. On April 20, this spicy discontinuance-up of the asteroid turned into as soon as captured at a distance of about 1100 kilometers by the Lucy spacecraft’s prolonged differ camera all over its second asteroid bump into. Named after American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson, discoverer of the Lucy hominid fossil, the elongated asteroid turned into as soon as likely formed about 150 million years within the past from a light-weight collision of two smaller our bodies constructing its attribute contact binary shape. Launched in October of 2021, the Lucy spacecraft will proceed its travels by means of the principle asteroid belt in 2025, but is on its map to uncover Jupiter’s swarm of Trojan asteroids. Lucy is expected to bump into its first Trojan asteroid target, 3548 Eurybates, in August 2027.
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