NASA’s Lucy probe has sent back humanity’s first close-up images of the asteroid (52246) Donaldjohanson, an elongated, peanut-shaped world that appears to be a contact binary formed from two colliding rocks roughly 150 million years ago.
Captured on April 20, 2025, from about 600 miles (960 km) by the spacecraft’s L’LORRI camera, the timelapse revealed surface details down to 50 meters and showcased the asteroid’s slow apparent rotation due to Lucy’s swift flyby. Despite spanning over 2.5 miles (4 km) end-to-end, Donaldjohanson couldn’t fit entirely in one frame, underscoring the irregular scale and challenge of imaging such an odd-shaped body.
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured the first close-up image of Donaldjohanson, revealing an elongated, peanut-shaped world roughly 2.5 miles across. A timelapse sequence—frames every two seconds—showed a slowly rotating body whose apparent spin is actually the result of Lucy’s high-speed passage.
This contact binary, formed about 150 million years ago when two smaller rocks collided and stuck together, exhibits lobes connected by a surprisingly narrow “neck” that even veteran scientists didn’t see coming.
As a relic of the solar system’s infancy, Donaldjohanson serves as a natural time capsule preserving the building blocks and collisional processes that gave rise to the planets. By mapping differences in crater density and surface texture, researchers can refine models of how primitive bodies accreted and evolved within the main asteroid belt.
Understanding the mechanical properties—like internal strength and porosity—of such irregular binaries helps improve asteroid-deflection strategies and even guides visions of future resource harvesting.
“As we study the complex structures in detail, they will reveal important information about the building blocks and collisional processes that formed the planets in our Solar System,” said Hal Levison, principal investigator for Lucy at Southwest Research Institute.
Tom Statler, program scientist at NASA Headquarters, added that these early images “are showing the tremendous capabilities of the Lucy spacecraft as an engine of discovery,” highlighting the mission’s promise to open a new window into solar system history.
Over the coming week, engineers will downlink the rest of the encounter data to build a full 3D model of Donaldjohanson’s shape and surface features. Scientists will also scour the data for moons or rings, which could reveal how debris evolves around such contact binaries.
After wrapping this flyby, Lucy will spend the rest of 2025 crossing the main belt before reaching its first Trojan target, Eurybates, in August 2027—kicking off its primary exploration phase.
Check out the full article for the complete story, all the images and the behind-the-scenes science details—your next cosmic adventure awaits!
