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Source: This post “Asteroid Dinkinesh” is based on the article”Asteroid Dinkinesh is actually two space rocks, finds NASA’s Lucy mission” published in “The Indian Express” on 3rd November 2023.
Why in News?
NASA’s Lucy mission has discovered that the Asteroid Dinkinesh is actually a binary system of two asteroids.
What is Lucy Mission?
| What is Lucy Spacecraft? | The Lucy space probe is on a 12-year voyage to Jupiter’s orbit, where it will explore the Jupiter Trojan asteroids. (Trojans are a group of small bodies that orbit the Sun in two “swarms” along the orbit of Jupiter. |
| Launched by | NASA on 16 October 2021 through Atlas V 401 rocket. |
| Aim | The objective of Mission Lucy is to uncover the origins of the universe, whose data can be found on the surface of the Trojan asteroids |
| Cost of Mission | US$981 million |
| Distance to be covered in mission (in kms) | Six billion |
What are Asteroids?
Asteroids are small, airless rocky worlds revolving around the sun that are too small to be called planets. They are also known as planetoids or minor planets.
What is Asteroid Dinkinesh?
(1) Dinkinesh (Dinkinesh means “marvelous” in the Amharic language) is a main-belt binary asteroid. (Binary asteriod is a system of two asteroids orbiting their common centre of mass, which is also called the bary-center).
(2) Dinkinesh was discovered on 4 November 1999 by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) sky survey at Socorro, New Mexico.
What are the Observations made by NASA about Asteroid Dinkinesh?
(1) Binary Pair– The main belt asteroid Dinkinesh is actually two asteroids bound together as a binary pair.
(2) Brightness fluctuation– Asteroid’s brightness is changing over time.
(3) Size Estimation– The larger body is about 790 meters wide while the smaller one is about 220 meters in size.
UPSC Syllabus- Science & Technology (Space)
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