WOW! Lucy Found a Pair of Asteroids Touching Each Other in Jupiter’s Orbit

Science Discoveries

In this episode, we will take a closer look at the latest images of asteroid Dinkinesh and its companions, taken by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft. Dinkinesh is one of the Trojans, a group of asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit. One of its companions, Little Lucy, is a contact binary, a pair of objects that are touching each other as they orbit around a common center of mass. We will learn how the contact binary was discovered, how it might have formed and evolved, and what it can tell us about the origins of the solar system.

Credit NASASpaceNews