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Spacecraft Images of Asteroid Donaldjohanson (science.nasa.gov)

submitted 1 month ago by paulhammond5155@lemmy.world to c/space@mander.xyz

4 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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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[–] SpecialSetOfSieves@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If my logical thinking serves me well, there's no chance to survive interstellar travel. Look at thar thing! Its full of craters. It's been bombarded by tiny super fast collisions. How can anything survived that in space and keep people alive too?

[–] cheeseburger@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

It has been out there for ~~billions of~~ ~150 million years to get that way.

[–] altphoto@lemmy.today -1 points 1 month ago

How many years did you think it would take us to get to a habitable planet?

The ship would be a living ship for a long long time. The space station already has been hit by micro meteors. Imagine what would happen to a larger ship away from the protection of the earth.