April 25, 2025
The atoms in your body have known many forms: star core, drifting dust, ocean mineral, living cell.
Asteroid Donaldjohanson
Birthday · April 25, 2025
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APOD published April 25, 2025. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Main belt asteroid 52246 Donaldjohanson is about 8 kilometers long and 3.5 kilometers across. On April 20, this sharp close-up of the asteroid was captured at a distance of about 1100 kilometers by the Lucy spacecraft's long range camera during its second asteroid encounter. Named after American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson, discoverer of the Lucy hominid fossil, the elongated asteroid was likely formed about 150 million years ago from a gentle collision of two smaller bodies creating its characteristic contact binary shape. Launched in October of 2021, the Lucy spacecraft will continue its travels through the main asteroid belt in 2025, but is on its way to explore Jupiter's swarm of Trojan asteroids. Lucy is expected to encounter its first Trojan asteroid target, 3548 Eurybates, in August 2027.