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155 Million-Year-Old Peanut-Shaped Asteroid Captured Wobbling in Space
Lucy’s close flyby found iron-rich clay minerals and a peanut-shaped body, giving scientists clues to the asteroid’s water-rich past and 155 million-year age.
- On Thursday, the journal Science published findings from NASA's Lucy spacecraft revealing asteroid Donaldjohanson as a water-rich, bi-lobed space rock shaped like a peanut.
- Donaldjohanson belongs to the Erigone family, formed 155 million years ago when a larger parent body shattered during a violent collision with a 12-mile-wide space rock.
- Measuring 8 kilometers long, DJ features a smooth neck region where loose material erased smaller craters, indicating recent seismic activity from a possible impact about 40 million years ago.
- Simone Marchi, lead author at the Southwest Research Institute, noted that comparing DJ to similar asteroids Bennu and Ryugu helps scientists understand planetary origins and solar system formation.
- Lucy's next target is the 68-kilometer-wide Trojan asteroid Eurybates, which the spacecraft will encounter on August 12, 2027, beginning its primary mission to Jupiter's asteroid clouds.
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NASA Encounters Wobbling, Peanut-Shaped Asteroid With A Prehistoric Secret
Deep in the asteroid belt, there's a space rock doing something genuinely strange: it's not just spinning, it's wobbling The post NASA Encounters Wobbling, Peanut-Shaped Asteroid With A Prehistoric Secret appeared first on StudyFinds.
Asteroid Donaldjohanson wobbles as it rotates, Lucy flyby reveals
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists studying the inner main-belt asteroid Donaldjohanson have found that its rotation wobbles. Rather than rolling through space in a steady pattern, Donaldjohanson turns on two axes, rotating end over end once every 10.5 Earth days while wobbling around its horizontal axis every 26.5 days. The findings are published in the journal Science.
·United Kingdom
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Coverage Details
Total News Sources51
Leaning Left8Leaning Right9Center18Last UpdatedBias Distribution51% Center
Bias Distribution
- 51% of the sources are Center
51% Center
L 23%
C 51%
R 26%
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