00:00 This is asteroid Dinkanesh.
00:04 It resides in the main asteroid belt that orbits between Mars and Jupiter.
00:08 And recently, NASA's asteroid probe Lucy did its first flyby of the cosmic traveler
00:12 and discovered something unexpected.
00:15 This is what is being described as Dinkanesh's moonlet, another small asteroid that's orbiting
00:20 it.
00:21 Astronomers say this was a pretty big surprise, as asteroids don't often come in pairs like
00:25 this, at least not as far as we know.
00:26 And it's now opening the floor to speculation that perhaps they're not as rare as we thought.
00:30 As Lucy approached the binary pair, researchers actually began to believe something was going
00:35 on, as its brightness kept changing during observations.
00:38 That's often a sign that something is passing in front of the observed object.
00:41 And when the Lucy probe sped by at 10,000 miles per hour, that very theory was confirmed.
00:47 Experts say the larger asteroid is some 2,600 feet wide.
00:50 Meanwhile, the moonlet is only around 720 feet wide.
00:54 The researchers say there are some interesting similarities between this pair and the Didymus
00:57 Dimorphis pair NASA's asteroid DART mission slammed into and redirected last year.
01:02 Meanwhile, the Lucy probe is already moving on to the next one, asteroid Donald Johnson,
01:07 and will hopefully be sending us photos of that one come 2025.
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