NASA's asteroid-hopping Lucy probe takes 1st images of its next target: Donaldjohanson

A gif showing two panels. On the left is a moving white object and on the right it's the same object, but circled.

NASA's Lucy spacecraft, on its way to Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, has its next target in its sights: the main belt asteroid 52246 Donaldjohanson.

Currently 45 million miles (70 million kilometers) from the two-mile-wide (3.2-kilometer-wide) Donaldjohanson, Lucy's high-resolution camera L'LORRI (Lucy Long Range Reconnaissance Imager) spotted the asteroid moving against a background of stars. Lucy will continue to track Donaldjohanson, adjusting its trajectory to ensure an accurate flyby on April 20, when the spacecraft will come within 596 miles (960 kilometers) of the asteroid, which orbits in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.