Our solar system is beautifully freaky. NASA's Lucy mission just flew past the 5-mile-wide asteroid Donaldjohanson. This is what it looks like: 🧪🔭 science.nasa.gov/image-articl... - ThreadSky

coreyspowell.bsky.social • 13 days ago

Our solar system is beautifully freaky. NASA's Lucy mission just flew past the 5-mile-wide asteroid Donaldjohanson. This is what it looks like: 🧪🔭

https://science.nasa.gov/image-article/nasas-lucy-spacecraft-images-asteroid-donaldjohanson/

Comments

coreyspowell.bsky.social•13 days ago

The Lucy mission is named after Lucy the hominid fossil. Donaldjohanson is named after Donald Johanson, who co-discovered the fossil.

The fossil, in turn, is named after "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," because Johanson's team did a celebratory dance to the song. 🧪

https://lucy.swri.edu/mission/Overview.html

nova123.bsky.social•13 days ago

So cool.

mccainsuzanne.bsky.social•13 days ago

Fantastic!

browniepoints.bsky.social•13 days ago

The naming backstory is so intriguing!

ladyevenstarbpe.bsky.social•13 days ago

Looks like dog bone...

davidtenn.bsky.social•13 days ago

Giant space potato.

myshell84-9.bsky.social•13 days ago

Looks like Mr. Peanut only without the glasses & the cane 😉

nedman.bsky.social•13 days ago

Fascinating how more and more of these objects are found to be bi-lobed

kmellis.com•13 days ago

So, does this suggest that clumpy regions evolve maybe to two co-orbiting aggregates, which then eventually decay/perturb to a very soft collision? Both parts of that seem (questionably, to be sure) intuitive to me.

asceptic.bsky.social•13 days ago

Absolutely correct and not the first contact binary asteroid imaged.

stephenseidel35.bsky.social•13 days ago

Can in be steered toward Mar-A-Lago?

coreyspowell.bsky.social•13 days ago

Space laser would be more tightly targeted

solosportscomms.bsky.social•13 days ago

(Take 2)
Gen X understood that reference... #RIPChrisKnight

zafodbeeblebrox.bsky.social•13 days ago

Is potato.

benbreitenfeld.bsky.social•13 days ago

Would I be correct in guessing that asteroids absorbing meteor impacts reduces their frequency providing some degree of protection for the inner planets of the solar system?

coreyspowell.bsky.social•13 days ago

Interesting question. Small asteroids have such weak gravity that impacts may dislodge as much or more material than they add. Impacts can also shatter or disassemble small asteroids entirely. On the whole: probably no net protection. More likely they increase the population of small objects.

benbreitenfeld.bsky.social•13 days ago

Since I was a kid mining of the asteroid belt has been an accepted trope in science fiction. Is there any actual potential in that concept?

solosportscomms.bsky.social•13 days ago

To be honest, It would likely depend on how feasible it would be to transport materials from the belt to the inner planets, assuming that we don't manage to destroy ourselves before we can create the technology required for such an undertaking...

benbreitenfeld.bsky.social•13 days ago

It would be an enormously expensive enterprise that might not show a profit for a long time. If I had to guess I would say we'll be extinct or civilization and technology will collapse before it happens.

coreyspowell.bsky.social•13 days ago

I can envision asteroid mining being useful for local resources (water for fuel/life support in space, metals for space-based construction). I cannot imagine it being economically viable for replacing mining metals on Earth, certainly not for the foreseeable future.

solosportscomms.bsky.social•13 days ago

There needs to be stages to get asteroid mining feasible and, dare I say it, profitable.. might be more feasible to consider trying to mine near-Earth asteroids so that the return time is less than from the Belt. If anything, look at how that's addressed in "The Expanse" and "Outland"

woodheap.bsky.social•13 days ago

Woah woah what.

They named that after Don Johnson?

coreyspowell.bsky.social•13 days ago

It does kinda look like Crockett & Tubbs mashed together

cre8ve2.bsky.social•13 days ago

science is so cool!

mark-s-blevins.bsky.social•13 days ago

🥔🤔

jhillmurphy.bsky.social•7 days ago

It's a big, cratered amoeba!

diaspora2022.bsky.social•13 days ago

It is! Just like life on Earth, Beautifully Freaky.

Please add Fibonacci’s… I’ll start!

skeeters2025.bsky.social•13 days ago

Can you imagine that thing slamming into our planet? Freaky and scary looking. 😳

jimmarciniak.bsky.social•13 days ago

There we are. Your bazillion space dollars got you a picture of a floating 5 mile long turd.

Howzabout we spend the money on stuff on Earth that makes life better for the planet and its people?

coreyspowell.bsky.social•13 days ago

You've got to be kidding me -- this again? Still?

Space research is a proven source of tech development, science spinoffs, and STEM recruitment. It's also an inspiring, collective human endeavor. Lucy costs $80 million a year. That's about 0.001% of the federal budget.

reptussanctus.bsky.social•13 days ago

Dang that’s one big Johanson

inkpenart.bsky.social•13 days ago

Wow 😳

dolorosasantos.bsky.social•13 days ago

So they named it with a pseudonym for penis?

toughergirl.bsky.social•13 days ago

It's the Tic Tac I spit out after thirty seconds

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply