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On November 1st, 2023, NASA's Lucy
mission was scheduled

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to flyby and image its first main belt
asteroid, Dinkinesh.

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However, when the team downloaded

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the spacecraft imagery,
it made an unexpected discovery.

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Asteroid Dinkinesh has a satellite
making it a binary asteroid system.

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In the first image from the Lucy
Long-range Reconnaissance Imager, the team

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observed the moon rise of a satellite
of its first asteroid Dinkinesh.

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This image was taken at 12:55 Eastern,
within a minute of closest approach

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from a range of approximately 270 miles
from the asteroid.

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The satellite is visible to the bottom
right of the primary asteroid.

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Dinkinesh

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In the Ethiopian language,
Amharic means “you

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are marvelous.” And the asteroid truly
did live up to its name.

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Lucy observations in the weeks
leading up to the encounter suggested

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that Dinkinesh might hold some surprises.

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Sure enough, imagery
from the terminal tracking

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camera “T2CAM” on the Lucy spacecraft
shows Dinkinesh's satellite.

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The apparent motion in this
sequence of images is due to the motion

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of the Lucy spacecraft
as it zoomed by at 10,000 miles per hour

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as the team downloaded more images
that had been taken before

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and after closest approach,
they were in for another surprise.

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That satellite was actually a contact
binary.

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It was two objects stuck together.

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This small satellite has been named Selam.

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which means “peace” in Amharic.

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The team will continue to study the data
from this first encounter as they prepare

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for their next rendezvous with the main
belt asteroid Donaldjohanson in 2025.