On Wednesday, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft zoomed by its first asteroid target — and scientists on the mission were shocked to discover that the rock, named Dinkinesh, was actually two rocks. The binary consists of a larger, primary asteroid and a smaller “moon” orbiting around it, as seen in images that Lucy captured of the pair. “We knew this was going to be the smallest main belt asteroid ever seen up close,” Keith Noll, an astronomer and Lucy project scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a news release. Lucy will visit nine additional space rocks through 2033, part of NASA’s broader effort to glean knowledge about our celestial neighborhood. “The Trojans are the last big population of objects that we have not yet seen close up,” said Thomas Statler, a NASA planetary scientist on the mission.

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Persons: NASA’s, Lucy, ” Keith Noll, ”, Thomas Statler Organizations: NASA Goddard Space Flight, Trojans, NASA