NASA's Lucy mission science team studied the smallest asteroid, Polymela, which orbits Jupiter. He discovered a satellite that resembles the moon, but much smaller.
About 26 teams of astronomers studied different parts of the Polymela's trajectory as seen from Earth. They drew attention to a bright glow near the asteroid, but at first they considered it to be a reflection of a star. However, the information from the two reports made it possible to calculate that the object is located approximately 200 km from Polimela.
The researchers found that the satellite has a diameter of 5 km, while the diameter of Polymela is about 27 km across.
Now scientists will try to determine the orbit of the satellite. This will likely happen in 2027, when the Lucy spacecraft will come closer to the asteroid. Now Polymela is located 770 million km from Earth.
The Lucy team originally planned to visit one main belt asteroid and six Trojan asteroids, a previously uncharted population of asteroids that follow Jupiter in its orbit around the Sun. In January 2021, the team used the Hubble Space Telescope to discover that one of the Trojan asteroids has a small moon. Now Lucy is set to visit a total of nine asteroids during her 12-year journey.
Lucy launched in October 2021. The device will circle the Earth twice to get enough momentum to send to Jupiter. According to plans, it will reach its first object by 2025, and complete the mission in 2033.
After the launch, NASA reported that one of the two main solar arrays installed on Lucy failed to fully lock on after deployment. In June 2022, the agency said it was halting attempts to uncover the solar array until October of that year.
In August, NASA, together with Lockheed Martin, finally managed to solve the problem. The problem was caused by a tangled cable.
bbabo.Net