NASA Lucy Flyby Views Odd Asteroid Neck Feature

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NASA's Lucy spacecraft zoomed past asteroid DonaldJohanson at 30,000 mph on April 20, capturing images of an oddly-shaped space rock with two connected lobes.

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Scientists spotted a peculiar "ice cream cone" neck joining the asteroid's two parts, a surprising feature that could reveal how these contact binary asteroids form.

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At 5 miles long and 2 miles wide, Donald Johanson proved larger than expected, so big it wouldn't fit in Lucy's camera frame during closest approach.

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The heavily cratered asteroid rotates extremely slowly, taking 251 hours (over 10 days) to complete just one spin.

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This 150-million-year-old space chunk formed when a larger asteroid named Erigone experienced a massive collision, creating a family of asteroid fragments.

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Lucy's encounter with Donald Johanson served as a crucial test run for its main mission: exploring the never-before-visited Trojan asteroids sharing Jupiter's orbit.

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"These early images show the tremendous capabilities of the Lucy spacecraft as an engine of discovery," said Tom Statler, program scientist at NASA Headquarters.

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All three science instruments aboard Lucy gathered valuable data during the 600-mile flyby, including a high-resolution camera and two spectrometers.

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The spacecraft's autonomous navigation system performed flawlessly, proving it can track and photograph fast-moving targets—a vital skill for future encounters.

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will spend the rest of 2025 traveling through the asteroid belt before reaching Trojan asteroid Eurybates and its satellite Queta in August 2027.

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