NASA flyby of "Dinky" asteroid reveals hidden moon

This image shows the "moonrise" of the satellite as it emerges from behind asteroid Dinkinesh as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L'LORRI), one of the most detailed images returned by NASA's Lucy spacecraft during its flyby of the asteroid binary. This image was taken at 12:55 p.m. EDT (1655 UTC) Nov. 1, 2023, within a minute of closest approach, from a range of approximately 270 miles (430 km). From this perspective, the satellite is behind the primary asteroid.

An asteroid affectionately known as "Dinky" has been tumbling through space with an even dinkier companion hidden behind it, surprising new images from NASA's Lucy spacecraft reveal.

Zooming past the asteroid at 10,000 mph (16,000 km/h) on Nov. 1, Lucy made its closest-ever observations of Dinkinesh ("Dinky"), an asteroid that Lucy has been tracking since the spacecraft's launch in 2021. Flying within roughly 270 miles (430 kilometers) of Dinkinesh, Lucy revealed that the space rock isn't just one asteroid, as initially thought, but a binary pair made of a larger, half-mile wide (790 meters) rock and a 0.15 mile wide (220 m) "moon" orbiting closely around it.