Satellite discovered by NASA’s Lucy mission gets name

The satellite found throughout the first asteroid encounter of NASA’s Lucy mission has an official title. On Nov. 27, 2023, the Worldwide Astronomical Union authorized the title “Selam” or ሰላም, which implies “peace” within the Ethiopian language Amharic, for Dinkinesh’s moon.

“Dinkinesh is the Ethiopian title for the fossil nicknamed “Lucy,'” says Raphael Marshall of the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Good, France, who initially recognized Dinkinesh as a possible goal of the Lucy mission. “It appeared applicable to call its satellite in honor of one other fossil that’s generally known as Lucy’s child.” The fossil Selam, found by Zeresenay Alemseged in 2000 in Dikika, Ethiopia, belonged to a 3-year-old woman of the identical species as Lucy; although the “child” really lived greater than 100,000 years earlier than Lucy.

The Lucy spacecraft flew by Dinkinesh and Selam on Nov 1, 2023. Whereas observations main as much as the encounter had hinted that there was one thing fascinating happening on this system, the workforce was stunned to find that not solely did Dinkinesh have a satellite, however that the satellite was a contact-binary, the primary contact-binary satellite ever noticed.

The workforce has accomplished downlinking encounter information from Lucy’s first asteroid encounter and is continuous to course of it. The Dinkinesh encounter was added in January of this 12 months as an in-flight check of the spacecraft’s techniques and devices, and all techniques carried out nicely.

The instruments and strategies refined with information from this encounter will assist the workforce put together for the mission’s most important targets, the never-before-explored Jupiter Trojan asteroids. Along with the pictures taken by Lucy’s high-resolution L’LORRI digital camera and its Terminal Monitoring Cameras (T2Cam), Lucy’s different science devices additionally collected information that may assist scientists perceive these puzzling asteroids.

The 2 elements of the Goddard equipped L’Ralph instrument, the Multi-spectral Seen Imaging Digital camera (MVIC) and Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA), each efficiently noticed the 2 asteroids from a wide range of vantage factors round closest approach. Throughout the encounter, the 2 elements scanned throughout the asteroids’ surfaces, enabling the workforce to assemble coloration photographs and spatially resolved spectra of the objects.

“To assemble the ultimate photographs, we should fastidiously account for the movement of the spacecraft, however Lucy’s correct pointing data makes this attainable,” stated Amy Simon of NASA’s Goddard Area Flight Heart, Greenbelt, Maryland. “These photographs will assist scientists perceive the composition of the asteroids, permitting the workforce to match the make-up of the Dinkinesh and Selam and to grasp how these our bodies could also be compositionally linked to different asteroids.”

The Arizona State College-supplied Lucy Thermal Emissions Spectrometer (L’TES) additionally detected the asteroids, regardless that, not like the longer term Trojan asteroid targets, they stuffed solely a small fraction of the instrument’s huge discipline of view. Scientists count on that the info will principally present perception into the floor properties of the bigger asteroid, Dinkinesh.

“L’TES was capable of detect and measure the temperature of the system for about 9 minutes because the spacecraft flew by at its closest strategy,” stated Phil Christensen of Arizona State College, Tempe. “Totally different sized particles, reminiscent of sand, pebbles, and boulders, warmth up otherwise because the asteroid rotates. The L’TES temperature measurements will permit us to check the scale and bodily properties of the supplies on the asteroid’s floor.”

Lucy is predicted to go to 9 extra asteroids over the following decade in 6 separate encounters. After an Earth gravity help in Dec. 2024, the spacecraft will return to the main asteroid belt the place it is going to encounter asteroid Donaldjohanson in April 2025. Lucy will move via the primary belt and attain the mission’s major targets, the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, in 2027.