NASA launched the Lucy spacecraft into space in October 2021 to explore asteroids near Jupiter. During his journey he made remarkable inventions. The space probe made an interesting discovery today.

That’s what researchers say during Lucy’s flight Dinky (Dinkinesh) He announced that he had found an asteroid named after him. What makes this object interesting is that it is the first asteroid Lucy encountered A month for himself.

A small satellite orbits the Dinky asteroid

In fact, this event is not very rare. This situation, called an asteroid pair, has been found before in many celestial bodies. However, scientists say that this situation in Dinky “unexpectedhe claimed. Planetary scientist Jessica Sunshine said: “A dual system was certainly a possibility. But it wasn’t expected. This is really great!” he said.

NASA states that only about a third of Dinky data comes close to Earth, so we still don’t know much. However, existing data and images indicate that the asteroid covered with craters shows that it is so. This is most likely a result of the impact of other asteroids. There’s also not much information about the small asteroid next to Dinky. However, researchers say more images and the shape of the satellite will emerge soon foreign He says it is. So we have a high chance of obtaining interesting information from this object.

Lucy’s research near Jupiter, which is due to make contact with asteroids in 2025, will continue. The vehicle had also made interesting discoveries in the past. For example, in 2022 he discovered a ‘mini moon’ deep in our solar system, thousands of times smaller than our satellite.