This image shows the “moonrise” of the satellite Selam as it emerges from behind asteroid Dinkinesh as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager , one of the most detailed images returned by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft during its flyby of the asteroid binary. The image has been sharpened and processed to enhance contrast.
Panels a, b, and c each show stereographic image pairs of the asteroid Dinkinesh taken by the NASA Lucy Spacecraft’s L’LORRI Instrument in the minutes around closest approach on November 1, 2023. The yellow and rose dots indicate the trough and ridge features, respectively. These images have been sharpened and processed to enhance contrast. Panel d shows a side view of Dinkinesh and its satellite Selam taken a few minutes after closest approach.
“I’m personally very excited to compare the Didymos binary system with this one, especially as they appear to share many similarities such as size, general shape and possibly composition despite being in totally different parts of the solar system,” explained Sunshine, who was also on NASA’s DART research team and“The Didymos binary system is located in a near-Earth environment while the Dinkinesh system is located much farther away from Earth in the main asteroid belt,” she added.