'Lucy' discovers a double moon around asteroid Dinkinesh
May 29, 2024 | Surprising observation in the main asteroid belt
'Lucy' discovers a double moon around asteroid Dinkinesh
The 'fabulous one' is orbited by 'peace'
On 1 November 2023, NASA's Lucy space probe flew past the asteroid Dinkinesh at a distance of 431 kilometres. A satellite appeared behind the main belt asteroid, which is only 720 metres across, in the first image data received (large image). However, the real surprise came with images taken during the departure from Dinkinesh: The satellite is a double body, a so-called contact binary asteroid, whose two 210 and 230-metre sub-bodies are connected to each other, rotate around a common centre of gravity and orbit Dinkinesh (small image). Like Dinkinesh (‘the marvellous one’), the companion was given an Amharic name: Selam ('peace', ሰላም).
Image: 1/3, Credit:
NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL/NOIRLab
NASA's Lucy spacecraft at the Trojan asteroids
The Lucy mission will be the first to explore asteroids from the 'Jupiter Trojans' family. These are planetoids that have accumulated at two points in front of and behind the gas giant where the gravitational forces of Jupiter and the Sun cancel each other out, known as libration or Lagrange points. After the launch on 16 October 2021, the NASA spacecraft will arrive at the L4 point on Jupiter's orbit in 2027 and observe five Trojan asteroids up close in succession until 2028, as anticipated in this artist's impression. After returning to the inner Solar System, Lucy will finally investigate a system of two binary asteroids at the L5 point in 2033.
Image: 2/3, Credit:
Southwest Research Institute
Launch of NASA's Lucy spacecraft
NASA's Lucy spacecraft will be the first mission to study Jupiter's 'Trojan' asteroids. It was launched on 16 October 2021 on an Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral spaceport in Florida. After passing by the asteroid Dinkinesh on 1 November 2023, Lucy will fly past another asteroid in the main belt (52246 Donaldjohanson) and finally seven ‘Trojan’ asteroids that are 60 degrees ahead or behind Jupiter in its orbit.
On 1 November 2023, NASA's Lucy spacecraft flew by its first target, the asteroid (152830) Dinkinesh, which is only 720 metres in size.
Big surprise: Dinkinesh is a complex asteroid and is accompanied by a satellite made up of two individual bodies
The emitted infrared radiation is likely to have accelerated the asteroid's rotation and the material to form the moons was torn out by centrifugal forces.
Lucy is on the way to the 'Trojan' asteroids in Jupiter's orbit, where it will arrive in 2027
Focus: Solar system exploration, asteroids, spaceflight
First a small surprise and then a big one: when NASA's Lucy space probe transmitted the first images to Earth after its flyby of the small asteroid Dinkinesh on 1 November 2023, it revealed a moon behind the 720-metre asteroid. The science team had previously considered the possibility that Dinkinesh might have a companion, as the light curves recorded using ground-based telescopes showed an irregularity that pointed to this. Now, however, the satellite was real. Then came more photos, and when the team examined them they were astonished: the Dinkinesh moon is made up of two parts, a so-called contact binary. The two touching satellites have diameters of 210 and 230 metres and orbit Dinkinesh at a distance of 3.1 kilometres in almost 53 hours. The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) is involved in the discovery.
The half-minute video shows the 48 images taken by the L'LORRI camera (Lucy Long Range Reconnaissance Imager) during the flyby of the asteroid Dinkinesh as a 'flip-book'. The images acquired by Lucy as it approached Dinkinesh initially confirmed the assumption that the asteroid, which is only 720 metres in size, had a companion. Only when looking back at Dinkinesh did the images reveal that this satellite is a double body, a so-called 'contact binary'.
Video of Lucy's flyby of (152830) Dinkinesh
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Video of Lucy's flyby of (152830) Dinkinesh
The half-minute video shows the 48 images taken by the L'LORRI camera (Lucy Long Range Reconnaissance Imager) during the flyby of the asteroid Dinkinesh as a 'flip-book'. The images acquired by Lucy as it approached Dinkinesh initially confirmed the assumption that the asteroid, which is only 720 metres in size, had a companion. Only when looking back at Dinkinesh did the images reveal that this satellite is a double body, a so-called 'contact binary'.
Credit:
NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL/NOIRLab
"The Lucy science team has been collecting data on Dinkinesh using telescopes since January 2023. At that point, Dinkinesh was added to our list of targets," said Simone Marchi, Deputy Project Investigator for the NASA Lucy mission; at the Southwest Reasearch Institute in Boulder, Colorado (USA). "We thought we had a pretty good idea of what Dinkinesh would look like thanks to the telescope data. But we were then thrilled to have made so many unexpected discoveries!" Dinkinesh's companion has now been named (152830) Dinkinesh I Selam by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), at the suggestion of the Lucy team. "This is the first time that such a configuration has been observed," says a delighted Stefano Mottola from the DLR Institute of Planetary Research, a member of the Lucy science team. Together with Frank Preusker, also from the DLR Institute of Planetary Research, he is responsible for the photogrammetric analysis of the image data and the calculation of digital terrain models to determine the shape of the three observed bodies.
In preparation for the flyby, Mottola intensively analysed the light curves of the asteroid, which rotates around its axis and reflects the sunlight to varying degrees. "The shape of these light curves was unusual for a normally rotating body," Mottola continues. "A companion of Dinkinesh was therefore conceivable. But the fact that it would turn out to be a double body, a 'contact binary', came as a total surprise." The results of the Lucy flyby have been published in the scientific journal Nature. Lucy is a mission in NASA's Discovery programme, which was launched on 16 October 2021. Its main targets are asteroids in Jupiter's orbit, known as Trojans, which precede or follow the planet by 60 degrees at two libration or Lagrange points. Several of these will initially be studied in 2027 and 2028, and will be observed again from 2033 onwards. The mission is named after a three-million-year-old fossilised skeleton that was unearthed in Ethiopia in 1974.
Ideal technology test with 'accompanying scientific programme'
No asteroid flyby was originally planned for 2023. However, Raphael Marschall, a member of the Lucy team, searched intensively for a flyby opportunity in the inner main asteroid belt and succeeded in January 2023. The asteroid, then known as 199 VD57, was given the Amharic name Dinkinesh ('You are marvellous') in the same year and would enable a close flyby at a distance of 431 kilometres with minor changes to its path. Above all, it could take place in a flight geometry that would be similar to the planned asteroid flybys during the actual mission with the Trojans of Jupiter. This opened up the possibility of testing the terminal tracking system, in other words the final, autonomous determination of the distance to the asteroids and thus optimised targeting. Lucy's instruments could also be subjected to a real experimental test. Both the scientific and technical objectives were achieved in full.
The Lucy flyby took place at a speed of 4.5 kilometres per second relative to Dinkinesh at a distance of around 470 million kilometres from Earth. Due to the long data travel time to Earth of 26 minutes, it was not possible to control the manoeuvres in real time. All manoeuvres were programmed in advance and ran fully automatically. The 48 images acquired with the L'LORRI camera show details of between 10 and 2.2 metres per pixel.
Small asteroid with a complex past
Dinkinesh is a surprisingly complex small body. The most striking feature is a groove that extends on both sides of the equator towards the poles on its photographed side, as well as a bulging ridge along the equator. The elongated trough is interpreted as visible evidence of the origin of the accompanying binary bodies. The missing material was torn out during a structural break of Dinkinesh, initially forming a ring around the planetoid from which the two sub-bodies of Selam emerged. The bulge along the equator could have been caused by other material that fell back out of the ring.
However, in the recently published paper, the Lucy team also discusses variants of this scenario. All explanations are based on a special effect involving small asteroids of less than five kilometres in diameter: the so-called YORP effect. It is named after the initials of the scientists Yarkovsky, O'Keefe, Radzievskii and Paddack, who predicted, calculated and later measured and demonstrated the concept: Sunlight heats the surface and thus stimulates the emission of thermal radiation. The photons of the infrared radiation emitted – even in the 'asteroid night' – exert a small momentum on a surface despite their tiny mass, which causes changes in the orientation of the rotation axis and/or the rotation speed over many millions of years. The YORP effect is thought to play a significant role in the formation of small asteroid companions – as could also have been the case with the formation of Selam.
Dinkinesh belongs to the S-type class of asteroids, which have a significantly higher proportion of iron- and magnesium-containing silicate minerals compared to the much more common, carbon-rich C-type asteroids. Around 17 percent of all asteroids belong to the S type. They are dominant in the inner part of the asteroid belt, around 100 million kilometres beyond the orbit of Mars, and become rarer the further they are from the Sun. Type S asteroids have a relatively high density of three grams per cubic centimetre on average. The density of Dinkinesh was calculated to be 2.4 grams per cubic centimetre, indicating that the asteroid is porous and has voids of up to a quarter of its total volume between its particles.
