this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2025
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36
Spacecraft Images of Asteroid Donaldjohanson (science.nasa.gov)
submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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The spacecraft has begun returning images that were collected as it flew approximately 600 miles (960 km) from the asteroid Donaldjohanson on April 20, 2025.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Always so strange and wonderful to see how these objects, entirely free of atmosphere or storm, can have such a "soft" look - with craters seemingly buried under a layer of snow or paste, or something. I wonder if that would be that be due to the phenomenon of regolith moving via "seismic shaking", which is supposed to partially bury smaller features in these asteroid landscapes. Even these preliminary images have enough detail and apparent features to beguile the eye.

DJ definitely doesn't appear as "soft" as Deimos or Atlas (out by Saturn), but those two moons are quite a bit larger than this inner main belt asteroid. A lovely reminder that there's a lot to see in the Belt.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

The numbers of objects we have observed / plotted in the belt are likely dwarfed many fold by those not observed. So yes, there's a lot to see in the Belt :)