Lucy, Discovery Mission 13 - a grand tour of the Jupiter Trojans Options

[ngunn]

I wonder if the two objects are tidally locked. Will we have enough data from the flyby to determine this?

[StargazeInWonder]

It seems like the close up imagery could be used in combination with subsequent ground observations to characterize the orbit. If a light curve can be derived, then that would nail down the orbital period. The Lucy imagery characterizes the semimajor axis. And both of those combined, would give us the mass.

[fredk]

And the release says that the team had noticed brightness changes in the preceeding weeks, so those certainly could pin down the orbital period.

[john_s]

More weirdness at Dinkinesh: NASA release

John

[Marcin600]

More weirdness at Dinkinesh: NASA release

John

How many more surprises await us? Something incredible!!!
Lucy rules!

[StargazeInWonder]

The mind reels. Did Dinkinesh have two slow-revolving mini-satellites that came together, or did an existing contact binary get captured? It seems like something even weirder must have happened. Baffling.

[Explorer1]

I was just joking in my post from last week about Lucy's multiplication abilities!
There was that hint of weirdness in the southern hemisphere. Turns out to have been a horizon, with the back end peaking out from behind.
Much like Arrokoth, it must have been a low velocity collision to merge the two moons into one.

[Marcin600]

Here you can find a slightly larger version of the recently published picture:
https://lucy.swri.edu/DinkineshEncounter.html
https://lucy.swri.edu/img/Dinkinesh_satelli...trajectory2.png

Some of my attempts to enlarge:
Credit to original picture: NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL

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[Marcin600]

(...) Much like Arrokoth, it must have been a low velocity collision to merge the two moons into one.

Let me just remind you of the theory of the formation of the equatorial ridge and small satellites presented in this article (I have already linked it regarding Ryugu): https://www.isas.jaxa.jp/home/research-port...eway/2022/1125/

The animation of the formation model posted there shows great potential for creating "contact binary mini-satellites":
https://youtu.be/Bj_TZYYSWKQ

[Hungry4info]

Dinkinesh's satellite has been named Selam.
https://www.wgsbn-iau.org/files/Bulletins/V...ll_V003_016.pdf

[john_s]

Lucy blog post announcing the satellite name, plus color and stereo views of Dinkinesh and Selam

John

[Marcin600]

Lucy blog post announcing the satellite name, plus color and stereo views of Dinkinesh and Selam

John

It's great to see new pictures.
But where are the unprocessed pictures? (or not so much processed?)

And what does it mean: "the apparent distance between Selam and Dinkinesh has been artificially reduced"?
Will we see pictures with the distance not „artificially reduced”?
This seems a bit strange to me...

[mcaplinger]

But where are the unprocessed pictures? (or not so much processed?)

Per https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/planetdat...23/pdf/7073.pdf

An additional modification to the original Lucy
archive delivery timeline was made when the main belt
asteroid 152830 Dinkinesh was added as a flyby target.
Instrument data for this encounter will be delivered to the
PDS within 9 months after downlink completion...

[Marcin600]

Thanks!
This requires a lot of patience...

BTW Here is the largest (I think) version of the "first" published picture of the Dinkinesh system that I found: https://space.jhuapl.edu/sites/space.jhuapl...ORRI-scaled.png

[Hungry4info]

3D anaglyph. The equatorial ridge extends toward us quite a lot - quite remarkable given how relatively subtle it is in the 2D images. The top (north?) pole has a lot of topology features... perhaps craters or canyons, not sure. I've placed Dinkinesh and Selam at about the same distance to the observer because it's kind of unviewable otherwise.

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