Asteroid Dinkinesh is a binary pair, reveal first image from NASA's Lucy mission

The first images returned by NASA's Lucy mission following its recent flyby of the small main belt asteroid Dinkinesh reveal that the asteroid is actually a binary pair.

According to the mission team, the larger body is approximately 0.5 miles (790 m) at its widest, while the smaller is about 0.15 miles (220 m) in size.

"Dinkinesh really did live up to its name; this is marvelous. When Lucy was originally selected for flight, we planned to fly by seven asteroids. With the addition of Dinkinesh, two Trojan moons, and now this satellite, we've turned it up to 11," said Hal Levison, the principal investigator for Lucy from the Boulder, Colorado, branch of the San Antonio-based Southwest Research Institute.

This is why we explore. Turns out that asteroid Dinkinesh is… asteroids Dinkinesh? During the #LucyMission’s first asteroid flyby on Nov. 1, we discovered that the main belt asteroid is a party of two, or binary pair! https://t.co/3aYWLvWmOw pic.twitter.com/IX2ZHHtRdK

— NASA Solar System (@NASASolarSystem) November 2, 2023

Launched in October 2021, Lucy is the first space mission to explore a diverse population of small bodies called the Jupiter Trojan asteroids - the time capsules from the earliest days of our solar system. Scientists hypothesize that these celestial objects are a mixture of bodies that formed all over the outer solar system, and later became trapped around Lagrange points and studying them will provide vital clues about the formation of our solar system.

During its 12-year mission, Lucy is scheduled to fly by two asteroids in the solar system's main asteroid belt, and by eight Trojan asteroids that share an orbit around the Sun with Jupiter.

The first asteroid encounter took place on November 1, 2023. The main objective behind the Dinkinesh flyby was to use the encounter as an opportunity to test Lucy's terminal tracking system designed to autonomously reorient the spacecraft and its instrument pointing platform as needed to keep the asteroid centered in the cameras' field of view.