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By NASA
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft is 6 days and less than 50 million miles (80 million km) away from its second close encounter with an asteroid; this time, the small main belt asteroid Donaldjohanson.
Download high-resolution video and images from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.
NASA/Dan Gallagher This upcoming event represents a comprehensive “dress rehearsal” for Lucy’s main mission over the next decade: the exploration of multiple Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun. Lucy’s first asteroid encounter – a flyby of the tiny main belt asteroid Dinkinesh and its satellite, Selam, on Nov. 1, 2023 – provided the team with an opportunity for a systems test that they will be building on during the upcoming flyby.
Lucy’s closest approach to Donaldjohanson will occur at 1:51pm EDT on April 20, at a distance of 596 miles (960 km). About 30 minutes before closest approach, Lucy will orient itself to track the asteroid, during which its high-gain antenna will turn away from Earth, suspending communication. Guided by its terminal tracking system, Lucy will autonomously rotate to keep Donaldjohanson in view. As it does this, Lucy will carry out a more complicated observing sequence than was used at Dinkinesh. All three science instruments – the high-resolution greyscale imager called L’LORRI, the color imager and infrared spectrometer called L’Ralph, and the far infrared spectrometer called L’TES – will carry out observation sequences very similar to the ones that will occur at the Trojan asteroids.
However, unlike with Dinkinesh, Lucy will stop tracking Donaldjohanson 40 seconds before the closest approach to protect its sensitive instruments from intense sunlight.
“If you were sitting on the asteroid watching the Lucy spacecraft approaching, you would have to shield your eyes staring at the Sun while waiting for Lucy to emerge from the glare. After Lucy passes the asteroid, the positions will be reversed, so we have to shield the instruments in the same way,” said encounter phase lead Michael Vincent of Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. “These instruments are designed to photograph objects illuminated by sunlight 25 times dimmer than at Earth, so looking toward the Sun could damage our cameras.”
Fortunately, this is the only one of Lucy’s seven asteroid encounters with this challenging geometry. During the Trojan encounters, as with Dinkinesh, the spacecraft will be able to collect data throughout the entire encounter.
After closest approach, the spacecraft will “pitch back,” reorienting its solar arrays back toward the Sun. Approximately an hour later, the spacecraft will re-establish communication with Earth.
“One of the weird things to wrap your brain around with these deep space missions is how slow the speed of light is,” continued Vincent. “Lucy is 12.5 light minutes away from Earth, meaning it takes that long for any signal we send to reach the spacecraft. Then it takes another 12.5 minutes before we get Lucy’s response telling us we were heard. So, when we command the data playback after closest approach, it takes 25 minutes from when we ask to see the pictures before we get any of them to the ground.”
Once the spacecraft’s health is confirmed, engineers will command Lucy to transmit the science data from the encounter back to Earth, which is a process that will take several days.
Donaldjohanson is a fragment from a collision 150 million years ago, making it one of the youngest main belt asteroids ever visited by a spacecraft.
“Every asteroid has a different story to tell, and these stories weave together to paint the history of our solar system,” said Tom Statler, Lucy mission program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The fact that each new asteroid we visit knocks our socks off means we’re only beginning to understand the depth and richness of that history. Telescopic observations are hinting that Donaldjohanson is going to have an interesting story, and I’m fully expecting to be surprised – again.”
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, designed and built the L’Ralph instrument and provides overall mission management, systems engineering and safety and mission assurance for Lucy. Hal Levison of SwRI’s office in Boulder, Colorado, is the principal investigator. SwRI, headquartered in San Antonio, also leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft, designed the original orbital trajectory and provides flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the Lucy spacecraft. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, designed and built the L’LORRI (Lucy Long Range Reconnaissance Imager) instrument. Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, designed and build the L’TES (Lucy Thermal Emission Spectrometer) instrument. Lucy is the thirteenth mission in NASA’s Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
By Katherine Kretke, Southwest Research Institute
Media Contact:
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
Nancy N. Jones
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Apr 14, 2025 EditorMadison OlsonContactNancy N. Jonesnancy.n.jones@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Lucy Goddard Space Flight Center Planetary Science Explore More
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By European Space Agency
The European Space Agency's XMM-Newton is playing a crucial role in investigating the longest and most energetic bursts of X-rays seen from a newly awakened black hole. Watching this strange behaviour unfold in real time offers a unique opportunity to learn more about these powerful events and the mysterious behaviour of massive black holes.
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By USH
On the night of February 23, 2025, residents of Tucumán, Argentina witnessed an astonishing sight during a violent thunderstorm. As a powerful lightning bolt tore through the sky, it briefly illuminated a massive, cigar-shaped object hovering in the storm’s center.
Eyewitnesses described the object as dark, elongated, and solid, standing in stark contrast to the swirling storm clouds around it. Unlike a natural weather phenomenon, the shape appeared structured and deliberate, leading many to speculate that it was a UFO of intelligent design, possibly of extraterrestrial origin.
It is not clear whether the object was struck by the lightning but there have been reports of UFOs being hit by lightning yet remaining unaffected, suggesting they may either harness or withstand immense energy levels.
Some researchers believe that certain UFOs absorb energy from lightning as a means of propulsion or power generation. In past cases, similar sightings have been reported in the presence of electrical storms, further fueling theories that such crafts may recharge their systems using natural energy sources.
It is known that theoretical physics explores the concept of extracting energy from electrical phenomena, such as Tesla’s ideas about wireless energy transmission. If an advanced civilization mastered this, lightning could be a viable energy source.
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By USH
On March 26, 2020, a French astronomer Mark Carlotto used a telescope to capture a video showing the moon at night. Dr. M. Carlotto is a specialist in digital video analysis of space objects. The video shows three objects rising above the Moon’s limb, flying across the lunar surface and disappearing in the Moon’s shadow.
The fact that some of these objects are so clearly visible and close enough to the moon to be able to cast noticeable shadows immediately suggests that they are quite large. Using the large Endymion crater as a benchmark, the sizes of the objects were determined.
The size of the object flying over Endymion is about 5 miles long and about 1 to 3 miles wide. The other two objects appear to be comparable in size.
By measuring the displacement of the object it appears that the object is traveling at about 31 mps. It is traveling more than 30 times faster than if it were in lunar orbit.
A paper was recently published that attempts to prove that the original video is a fake. Arxiv.org analyzed the video (not included in the analysis) but extracted and provided three images of the recorded objects for examination, as seen above, and they then conducted calculations to verify its authenticity.
Despite government and space agency denials of UFO existence, photographic evidence and subsequent analysis suggest the presence of large extraterrestrial craft near the Moon and elsewhere in space.View the full article
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By European Space Agency
The European Space Agency (ESA) is ready to guide the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft through its closest encounter with Venus so far.
Today’s flyby will be the first to significantly ‘tilt’ the spacecraft’s orbit and allow it to see the Sun’s polar regions, which cannot be seen from Earth.
Studying the Sun’s poles will improve our understanding of solar activity, space weather, and the Sun-Earth connection.
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