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Even small asteroids lead complex lives. During its flyby of the asteroid Donaldjohanson last year, NASA\u2019s Lucy spacecraft revealed the asteroid to be a wobbly, peanut-shaped body that has undergone a lot of activity in its relatively short history. Formed as fragments coalesced after\u00a0a\u00a0violent collision 155 million years ago, the asteroid was transformed by the small but inexorable force of the Sun\u2019s radiation,\u00a0all while retaining signs of\u00a0the\u00a0brief presence of liquid water in its distant past.<\/p>\n
Zooming through the main asteroid belt toward one of the Jupiter Trojan asteroid groups, the Lucy spacecraft collected the first close-up images and other data at Donaldjohanson on April 20, 2025, as it passed 650 miles away from the asteroid. The data revealed that, instead of spinning simply around one axis like most other asteroids and planets, Donaldjohanson has a more complicated two-axis rotation. Scientists also saw Donaldjohanson\u2019s peanut shape and the craters and ridges on its surface.<\/p>\n