It could be referred to as a “mini moon”.

Recently, NASA made a small yet thrilling discovery during a spacecraft’s visit to a minor asteroid in the solar system. It was found that this tiny space rock has its own miniature companion.

While exploring asteroid Dinkinesh, the spacecraft Lucy made a surprising discovery of a moon companion.

On Wednesday, while passing by Dinkinesh, which is located 300 million miles away in the main asteroid belt past Mars, the spacecraft captured an image of the duo at a distance of 270 miles.

The spacecraft transmitted data and images to Earth, revealing that Dinkinesh is approximately 790 meters in diameter. Its accompanying moon is significantly smaller, measuring only 220 meters.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched Lucy on a mission to observe Dinkinesh as a practice run for studying the larger and more enigmatic asteroids near Jupiter.

In 2021, the spacecraft was launched and is expected to arrive at the initial Trojan asteroid in 2027. It will study these asteroids for a minimum of six years. The initial list of seven targets has now been expanded to 11.

In Amharic, the language of Ethiopia, Dinkinesh translates to “you are marvelous”.

“Dinkinesh really did live up to its name; this is marvelous,” Hal Levison, the lead scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, said in a statement.

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The report was contributed by The Associated Press.

Source: theguardian.com