Lucy gets first images of its first target asteroid, Dinkinesh
The asteroid probe Lucy has obtained its first images of Dinkinesh, the first of the ten asteroids the spacecraft is hoping to visit during its twelve year voyage to the Trojan asteroids.
The image to the left shows the motion of that asteroid over a two day period when Lucy was getting the pictures.
Lucy took these images while it was 14 million miles (23 million km) away from the asteroid, which is only about a half-mile wide (1 km). Over the next two months, Lucy will continue toward Dinkinesh until its closest approach of 265 miles (425 km) on Nov. 1, 2023. The Lucy team will use this encounter as an opportunity to test out spacecraft systems and procedures, focusing on the spacecraft’s terminal tracking system, designed to keep the asteroid within the instruments’ fields of view as the spacecraft flies by at 10,000 mph (4.5 km/s). Lucy will continue to image the asteroid over the next months as part of its optical navigation program, which uses the asteroid’s apparent position against the star background to determine the relative position of Lucy and Dinkinesh to ensure an accurate flyby. Dinkinesh will remain an unresolved point of light during the long approach and won’t start to show surface detail until the day of the encounter.
Lucy’s primary targets are asteroids in the two Trojan groups that orbit the Sun in the two Lagrange points in same orbit as Jupiter, fore and aft of the gas giant by 60 degrees. For a map of Lucy’s full mission profile, go here.
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The asteroid probe Lucy has obtained its first images of Dinkinesh, the first of the ten asteroids the spacecraft is hoping to visit during its twelve year voyage to the Trojan asteroids.
The image to the left shows the motion of that asteroid over a two day period when Lucy was getting the pictures.
Lucy took these images while it was 14 million miles (23 million km) away from the asteroid, which is only about a half-mile wide (1 km). Over the next two months, Lucy will continue toward Dinkinesh until its closest approach of 265 miles (425 km) on Nov. 1, 2023. The Lucy team will use this encounter as an opportunity to test out spacecraft systems and procedures, focusing on the spacecraft’s terminal tracking system, designed to keep the asteroid within the instruments’ fields of view as the spacecraft flies by at 10,000 mph (4.5 km/s). Lucy will continue to image the asteroid over the next months as part of its optical navigation program, which uses the asteroid’s apparent position against the star background to determine the relative position of Lucy and Dinkinesh to ensure an accurate flyby. Dinkinesh will remain an unresolved point of light during the long approach and won’t start to show surface detail until the day of the encounter.
Lucy’s primary targets are asteroids in the two Trojan groups that orbit the Sun in the two Lagrange points in same orbit as Jupiter, fore and aft of the gas giant by 60 degrees. For a map of Lucy’s full mission profile, go here.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I understand how it can detect movement, although without the helpful circles it would have taken me a long time to notice (but I also liked the glowing hockey puck, back before HDTV).
How does anyone know it’s looking at the right asteroid? It’s the only moving thing I see in that picture, but surely there are others flying around out there, too. Just ‘right place, right time’ based on what we know from longer-term ground observations?
markedup2: They know this moving dot is Dinkinesh for two reasons:
1. The moving dot is where in the sky the asteroid is supposed to be, based on its well documented orbit.
2. Space is big. Even though this asteroid is in the asteroid belt, objects are not that close together. It is unlikely this small field of view would spot two objects, with both traveling in the exactly the same general direction as predicted by Dinkinesh’s orbit.
minor edit in last sentence: “Lagrange points”
Andi: What would I do without your second pair of eyes? Thank you. Now fixed.