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Bruce Murray Space Image Library

Dinkinesh and its moonlets

Dinkinesh and its moonlets
Dinkinesh and its moonlets This image shows the asteroid Dinkinesh and its satellite as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI) as NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft departed the system. This image was taken at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 UTC) Nov. 1, 2023, about 6 minutes after closest approach, from a range of approximately 1,630 kilometers (1,010 miles). From this perspective, the satellite is revealed to be a contact binary, the first time a contact binary has been seen orbiting another asteroid. NASA / Goddard / SwRI / Johns Hopkins APL