NASA's Lucy spacecraft, on a mission to research Jupiter's asteroids, made a surprising discovery when it captured an image of the asteroid Dinkinesh with a small moon orbiting it. The spacecraft, launched in October 2021, conducted a flyby of Dinkinesh in Mars' main asteroid belt, approximately 300 million miles away. The image was taken when Lucy was just 270 miles from Dinkinesh and was subsequently transmitted back to Earth.

The findings from the image revealed that Dinkinesh is only around half a mile across, while its accompanying moon measures approximately a tenth of a mile. This discovery came as a surprise to scientists, who were using the mission as a rehearsal for a larger exploration of the mysterious asteroids near Jupiter.

The 12-year-long mission, set to explore the Trojan asteroids, which are in orbits around the sun at the same distance as Jupiter, aims to reach the first of these asteroids in 2027. The initial target list of seven asteroids has now expanded to 11. The name Dinkinesh, meaning "you are marvelous" in the Amharic language of Ethiopia, reflects the awe-inspiring nature of this discovery. It is also the name given to the 3.2-million-year-old remains of a human ancestor found in Ethiopia in the 1970s, which the spacecraft is named after.

Hal Levison, the lead scientist from the Southwest Research Institute, expressed his excitement about the findings, stating, "Dinkinesh really did live up to its name; this is marvelous." The Associated Press contributed to the report, emphasizing the significance of this discovery in expanding our understanding of the solar system and its celestial bodies.