NASA's Lucy Spacecraft Captures Close-Up of Asteroid Donaldjohanson

NASA's Lucy spacecraft has captured the first close-up images of asteroid Donaldjohanson during a flyby about 600 miles from the asteroid, revealing its unexpectedly complex geology and elongated, lumpy shape. The asteroid, estimated to be about 5 miles long and 2 miles wide, appears to consist of two lobes joined by a narrow neck, resembling two nested ice cream cones or a lumpy bowling pin. The flyby, which took place in April 2025, provided a dress rehearsal for Lucy's future encounters with Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, the mission's primary targets. Scientists were surprised by the asteroid's size and shape, which support previous observations indicating significant brightness variation and suggest it is a contact binary formed from a collision. Data collected during the encounter are expected to shed light on the building blocks and collisional processes that shaped the solar system. The full dataset from the flyby will be analyzed over the coming weeks to refine understanding of Donaldjohanson's characteristics.