by The first asteroid visited by NASA’s rock-hopping spacecraft Lucy finally has a name. The small asteroid in the main asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter has been named “Dinkinesh” or தியான்நை in Amharic, the language of Ethiopia, which means “you are wonderful.”
Dinkinesh was discovered in 1999, but like millions of others main belt asteroids, it was not given a name, it was only given a designation number when the path was well determined. First known by its provisional designation as 1999 VD57, the asteroid later entered the catalogs as 152830. A proper name was first proposed when the rock was chosen as the target of NASA’s Lucy mission.
Evolution enthusiasts may recognize the name Dinkinesh as it is the alternate name of the fossilized ones Australopithecus afarensis skeleton known as “Lucy”, which was discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia.
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“This mission was named after Lucy because just as that fossil revolutionized our understanding of human evolution, we expect this mission to revolutionize our understanding of the origin and evolution of our solar system,” Lucy project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Keith Noll said in a statement (opens in a new tab). “We are excited to have another opportunity to honor that connection.”
Dinkinesh will be the first out on a packed trip for the Lucy spacecraft when it reaches the small asteroid on Nov. 1, 2023. The romberg was not originally part of the 12-year trip that will see the spacecraft visit nine other asteroids and was only added in January .
Dinkinesh was added Lucy’s itinerary because the spacecraft’s operators believe the small asteroid could be used to test the probe’s innovative terminal tracking system. The system will allow Lucy to accurately image the asteroids it encounters as it passes them at high speeds.
The fact that Dinkinesh is less than half a mile (under a kilometer) in diameter means it will provide an excellent test of Lucy’s high-speed imaging capabilities before the spacecraft begins its main mission of investigating the never-before-explored Jupiter Trojan asteroids.
This large group of asteroids has the same orbit as Jupiterit the solar systemits largest planet. Astronomers believe that these Trojan asteroids are fossilized remains of the material that formed the planets in the solar system over 4.5 billion years ago.
“This is really a tiny little asteroid,” Hal Levison, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and Lucy’s principal investigator, said of Dinkinesh in the statement. “Some of the team affectionately refer to it as ‘Dinky.’ But for a small asteroid, we expect it to be a big help to the Lucy mission.”
The visit to Dinkinesh will not be just a test of Lucy’s instrumentation. Scientists are also excited about what they can learn from the asteroid itself, which will be the smallest main asteroid belt object ever explored by a spacecraft.
In terms of size, Dinkinesh is actually more like a near-Earth asteroid than a main belt object, as these tend to be larger. Astronomers hope that the rock can help them discover how asteroids change as they leave their position between Jupiter and March and get closer to our planet.
“At closest approach, if all goes well, we expect Dinkinesh to be 100s of pixels across from Lucy’s sharpest imager,” Simone Marchi, senior scientist at SwRI, said in the statement. “Although we won’t be able to see all the details on the surface, even the general shape can indicate whether near-Earth asteroids – which originate in the main belt – change significantly as they enter space.”
That means that just as the Lucy skeleton proved revolutionary for our understanding of human evolution, Dinkinesh could be viral in our understanding of the evolution of the solar system.
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