NASA’s Lucy spacecraft is gearing up for an exciting flyby of the asteroid Donaldjohanson on April 20, 2025. The mission, ...

Donaldjohanson, a main belt asteroid, could be a relic of a cosmic collision that took place 150 million years ago.

Donaldjohanson formed about 150 million years ago when a much larger asteroid broke apart. Since then, its orbit and spin ...

New Southwest Research Institute-led modeling indicates the main belt asteroid (52246) Donaldjohanson may have formed about ...

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, part of an ambitious mission to explore the outer solar system, has successfully captured its first images of the asteroid Donaldjohanson. This marks an important step in the ...

New Southwest Research Institute-led modeling indicates the main belt asteroid (52246) Donaldjohanson may have formed about 150 million years ago when a larger parent asteroid broke apart; its orbit ...

Although NASA's Lucy spacecraft's upcoming encounter with the asteroid Donaldjohanson is primarily a mission rehearsal for ...

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will fly by asteroid Donaldjohanson on April 20, 2025, revealing its shattered past, strange spin, and secrets of planetary formation in a major space milestone.

An artist's concept of the the Lucy spacecraft flying past the Trojan asteroids Patroclus and Menoetius. Illustration: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab/Adriana Gutierrez ...

A UVA professor is part of the study of Trojan asteroids, presumed remnants of the early solar system that share Jupiter’s ...

Asteroid Donaldjohanson is named for anthropologist Donald Johanson, who discovered the fossilized skeleton—called "Lucy"—of a human ancestor. NASA's Lucy mission is named for the fossil.

The asteroid holds special significance for the Lucy mission. It is named after anthropologist Donald Johanson, who discovered the fossilized skeleton called Lucy of a human ancestor in 1974.