152830 Dinkinesh
152830 Dinkinesh (provisional designation 1999 VD57) is a binary main-belt asteroid about 790 meters (2,600 feet) in diameter. It was discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) survey at Socorro, New Mexico on 4 November 1999. Dinkinesh, the name borrowed from an Ethiopian word for the Lucy fossil, was the first flyby target of NASA's Lucy mission, which approached 425 km (264 mi) from the asteroid on 1 November 2023. During the flyby, the Lucy spacecraft discovered that Dinkinesh has a contact-binary natural satellite, named Selam, which is 220 meters (720 ft) in diameter. Dinkinesh is the smallest main-belt asteroid explored by spacecraft yet, though some smaller near-Earth asteroids have also been explored.
Dinkinesh and its satellite Selam imaged by the Lucy spacecraft's L'LORRI camera | |
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | LINEAR |
| Discovery site | Lincoln Lab ETS |
| Discovery date | 4 November 1999 |
| Designations | |
| (152830) Dinkinesh | |
| Pronunciation | /ˈdɪŋkɪnɛʃ/ |
Named after | Dinkʼinesh (Lucy fossil) |
| 1999 VD57 · 2004 HJ78 · 2007 CB63 | |
| main-belt · (inner) | |
| Orbital characteristics | |
| Epoch 25 February 2023 (JD 2460000.5) | |
| Uncertainty parameter 0 | |
| Observation arc | 23.06 yr (8,422 days) |
| Earliest precovery date | 15 October 1999 |
| Aphelion | 2.437 AU |
| Perihelion | 1.946 AU |
| 2.191 AU | |
| Eccentricity | 0.1120 |
| 3.24 yr (1,185 days) | |
| 25.239° | |
| 0° 18m 13.874s / day | |
| Inclination | 2.094° |
| 21.380° | |
| 66.711° | |
| Known satellites | 1 |
| Physical characteristics | |
Mean diameter | 790 m (primary) |
| 52.67±0.04 h (satellite orbital period?) | |
| 0.27+0.25 −0.06 | |
| Sq V–R = 0.455±0.025 | |
| 17.62±0.04 (V-band): L3 | |
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