{"id":135392,"date":"2023-05-24T10:54:39","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T14:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=135392"},"modified":"2023-05-26T09:08:29","modified_gmt":"2023-05-26T13:08:29","slug":"ucf-researcher-helps-uncover-key-findings-about-asteroid-dinkinesh-a-target-of-nasas-lucy-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/ucf-researcher-helps-uncover-key-findings-about-asteroid-dinkinesh-a-target-of-nasas-lucy-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"UCF Researcher Helps Uncover Key Findings about Asteroid Dinkinesh, a Target of NASA\u2019s Lucy Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

A University of Central Florida researcher is part of a team that recently discovered significant insights into the size and surface composition of Dinkinesh, an asteroid that NASA\u2019s Lucy mission will visit in November.<\/p>\n

Using observations from telescopes in Spain and the U.S., the team found that Dinkinesh is remarkably small, making it the smallest asteroid to be approached by Lucy. They also found that it is a stony, or S-type, asteroid composed of mainly silicates and some metal.<\/p>\n

The results were published recently in a letter to the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in October 2021, NASA\u2019s 12-year Lucy mission is sending a space probe to 10 asteroids, two in the main asteroid belt first and then eight Trojan asteroids near Jupiter. It will reach Dinkinesh, one of the main belt asteroids, on Nov. 1.<\/p>\n

Learning more about surface variations of asteroids will give more insight into the role that small debris and collisions played in forming our solar system, says Noem\u00ed Pinilla-Alonso, study co-author and a planetary scientist with UCF\u2019s Florida Space Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n