A close flyby of asteroid Donaldjohanson prepares Lucy for its historic mission to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. NASA’s Lucy spacecraft is set to zoom past another asteroid this weekend, marking its second close encounter on a journey that aims to unlock the mysteries of the early solar system. The spacecraft will fly by asteroid Donaldjohanson on Sunday, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, approximately 139 million miles (223 million kilometers) from Earth.
Launched in 2021, Lucy is on a 12-year mission to study 11 space rocks, including eight Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit. These primitive celestial bodies are considered relics from the formation of the planets more than four billion years ago.
Sunday’s flyby is a crucial “dress rehearsal” for Lucy’s first Trojan asteroid encounter in 2027, NASA officials said. The spacecraft will pass just 596 miles (960 kilometers) from Donaldjohanson, which is estimated to be about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) long, though its width is significantly smaller. The encounter will occur at a blistering speed of over 30,000 mph (48,000 kph).
The asteroid is named after Donald Johanson, the American paleoanthropologist who discovered the famous fossil “Lucy” in Ethiopia in 1974. The spacecraft was named in honor of the same fossil, a nod to the link between studying ancient remains on Earth and in space.
Johanson himself plans to be at Lockheed Martin’s Mission Control in Colorado for the event. The facility oversees operations for the spacecraft.
Lucy’s science team will activate the probe’s three main instruments during the flyby to gather high-resolution images and other data. However, the spacecraft will not be able to communicate with Earth during the closest approach, as its antenna will be oriented toward the asteroid to ensure accurate tracking.
Lead scientist Hal Levison of the Southwest Research Institute described the upcoming encounter with excitement and curiosity.
“It’s not going to be a basic potato. We already know that,” Levison said.
“We don’t know what to expect. That’s what makes this so cool.”
Scientists believe Donaldjohanson could resemble a bowling pin or even a snowman-like structure similar to Arrokoth, a Kuiper Belt object visited by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in 2019. There is also the possibility that the object is actually a pair of elongated asteroids.
Donaldjohanson is thought to be a remnant of a major collision that occurred around 150 million years ago, contributing to the vast debris field in the asteroid belt.
Lucy’s first asteroid encounter happened in 2023, when it flew by the small asteroid Dinkinesh and made the surprise discovery of a mini-moon orbiting it. The upcoming Trojan encounters from 2027 to 2033 are considered the “main event” of the mission, offering scientists a rare look at ancient remnants from the solar system’s earliest days.
Data from Sunday’s flyby is expected to begin arriving within 24 hours of the encounter, as NASA continues its ambitious effort to chart the history of planetary formation one asteroid at a time.
Edgaroo Hernal started college at UP Diliman and received his BA in Economics from San Sebastian College, Manila, and Masters in Information Systems Management from Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University in Oak Brook, IL. He has 25 years of copy editing and management experience at Thomson West, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters.
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