Since the spaceship Lucy POT first imaged the asteroid Dinkinesh on September 3, 2023, Lucy has traveled more than 54 million kilometers and is now 7.6 million kilometers from the small asteroid.

However, as Dinkinesh continues its orbit around the sun, Lucy still has nearly 16 million miles to travel until its encounter with the asteroid on November 1.

NASA indicates that over the past month, the spacecraft team has observed that the target asteroid generally brightens as Lucy approaches it, and has also observed a subtle variation in brightness consistent with the rotation period of 52.7 hours as previously observed.

Since Lucy first observed the asteroid on September 3, the team has used images collected by the spacecraft’s high-resolution camera, L’LORRI, to refine their knowledge of the relative positions of the spacecraft and asteroid, allowing Lucy to optically is led to the meeting. .

Using this information, the spacecraft performed a small trajectory correction maneuver on September 29.causing the spacecraft’s speed to change by only 6 cm/s (about 0.1 mph).

This push is expected to send the spacecraft on a trajectory that will pass within 265 miles (425 kilometers) of the asteroid. The team will have another opportunity at the end of October to adjust the route if necessary.

On October 6, the spacecraft passed behind the sun as seen from Earth, causing a planned communications blackout. The spacecraft has continued to take images of the asteroid and will return these images to Earth once communications resume after the end of the solar conjunction period in mid-October.

Lucy, which left Earth in October 2021, is aiming for a 12-year mission to explore seven different asteroids: Dinkinesh – a main belt asteroid – and six Trojan asteroids near Jupiter. (JO)