|
Selam (moon)
Selam, formal designation Dinkinesh I, is a contact binary and natural satellite of the main belt asteroid 152830 Dinkinesh. It was discovered on November 1st, 2023 during Lucy's flyby of Dinkinesh. Lucy took pictures of the asteroid, and sent data back to NASA leading to the discovery of the moon. Naming Selam was named after the fossilized remains of an Australopithecus, named Selam (ሰላም) also known as "Lucy's daughter" although being some 100,000 years older than the fossilized remains of another Australopithecus known as Lucy, but Dink'inesh in Amharic . Selam (which also means "peace" in the Amharic language) was chosen for the moon, as the name of the asteroid it orbits around is " Dink'inesh". The name Selam was proposed by astronomer Raphael Marschall. The spaceship ''Lucy'' which discovered Selam was also named after the Australopithecus Lucy. Theorized origin Selam is theorized to have been formed out of the same material and same surface texture as oth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucy (spacecraft)
''Lucy'' is a NASA space probe on a twelve-year journey to eight different asteroids. It is slated to visit two Asteroid belt, main belt asteroids as well as six Jupiter trojans – asteroids that share Jupiter's orbit around the Sun, orbiting either ahead of or behind the planet. All target encounters will be Flyby (spaceflight), flyby encounters. The ''Lucy'' spacecraft is the centerpiece of a US$981 million mission. On 4 January 2017, ''Lucy'' was chosen, along with the Psyche (spacecraft), ''Psyche'' mission, as NASA's Discovery Program missions 13 and 14 respectively. It was launched on 16 October 2021. In November 2023 and in April 2025 it flew by and photographed asteroids 152830 Dinkinesh, Dinkinesh and Donaldjohanson, respectively. Lucy will reach its first main target, the Jupiter Trojan asteroid 3548_Eurybates, Eurybates, in August 2027. The mission is named after the Lucy (Australopithecus), Lucy hominin fossils, because study of the trojans could reveal the "foss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contact Binary (small Solar System Body)
A contact binary is a small Solar System body, such as a minor planet or comet, that is composed of two bodies that have gravitated toward each other until they touch, resulting in a bilobated, peanut-like overall shape. Contact binaries are distinct from true binary systems such as binary asteroids where both components are separated. The term is also used for stellar contact binaries. An example of a contact binary is the Kuiper belt object 486958 Arrokoth, which was imaged by the ''New Horizons'' spacecraft during its flyby in January 2019. History The existence of contact binary asteroids was first speculated by planetary scientist Allan F. Cook in 1971, who sought for potential explanations for the extremely elongated shape of the Jupiter trojan asteroid 624 Hektor, whose longest axis measures roughly across and is twice as long as its shorter axes according to light curve measurements. Astronomers William K. Hartmann and Dale P. Cruikshank performed further invest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Satellite
A natural satellite is, in the most common usage, an astronomical body that orbits a planet, dwarf planet, or small Solar System body (or sometimes another natural satellite). Natural satellites are colloquially referred to as moons, a derivation from the Moon of Earth. In the Solar System, there are six planetary satellite systems containing 418 known natural satellites altogether. Seven objects commonly considered dwarf planets by astronomers are also known to have natural satellites: , Pluto, Haumea, , Makemake, , and Eris. As of January 2022, there are 447 other minor planets known to have natural satellites. A planet usually has at least around 10,000 times the mass of any natural satellites that orbit it, with a correspondingly much larger diameter. The Earth–Moon system is a unique exception in the Solar System; at 3,474 kilometres (2,158 miles) across, the Moon is 0.273 times the diameter of Earth and about of its mass. The next largest ratios are the N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
152830 Dinkinesh
152830 Dinkinesh (provisional designation ) is a binary main-belt asteroid about in diameter. It was discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) survey at Socorro, New Mexico on 4 November 1999. Dinkinesh, the name borrowed from an Ethiopian word for the Lucy fossil, was the first flyby target of NASA's ''Lucy'' mission, which approached from the asteroid on 1 November 2023. During the flyby, the ''Lucy'' spacecraft discovered that Dinkinesh has a contact-binary natural satellite, named Selam, which is in diameter. Dinkinesh is the smallest main-belt asteroid explored by spacecraft yet, though some smaller near-Earth asteroids have also been explored. Discovery and observational history Dinkinesh was discovered on 4 November 1999 by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) sky survey at Socorro, New Mexico. The discovery observations were published by the Minor Planet Center (MPC) on 23 November 1999 and the asteroid was given the minor pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States's civil list of government space agencies, space program, aeronautics research and outer space, space research. National Aeronautics and Space Act, Established in 1958, it succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the American space development effort a distinct civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. It has since led most of America's space exploration programs, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968–1972 Apollo program missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. Currently, NASA supports the International Space Station (ISS) along with the Commercial Crew Program and oversees the development of the Orion (spacecraft), Orion spacecraft and the Sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australopithecus
''Australopithecus'' (, ; or (, ) is a genus of early hominins that existed in Africa during the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. The genera ''Homo'' (which includes modern humans), ''Paranthropus'', and ''Kenyanthropus'' evolved from some ''Australopithecus'' species. ''Australopithecus'' is a member of the subtribe Australopithecina, which sometimes also includes ''Ardipithecus'', though the term "australopithecine" is sometimes used to refer only to members of ''Australopithecus''. Species include ''Australopithecus garhi, A. garhi'', ''Australopithecus africanus, A. africanus'', ''Australopithecus sediba, A. sediba'', ''Australopithecus afarensis, A. afarensis'', ''Australopithecus anamensis, A. anamensis'', ''Australopithecus bahrelghazali, A. bahrelghazali'', and ''Australopithecus deyiremeda, A. deyiremeda''. Debate exists as to whether some ''Australopithecus'' species should be reclassified into new genera, or if ''Paranthropus'' and ''Kenyanthropus'' are synonymous with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Selam (Australopithecus)
Selam (DIK-1/1) is the fossilized skull and other skeletal remains of a three-year-old ''Australopithecus afarensis'' female hominin, whose bones were first found in Dikika, in the Afar Region of northeastern Ethiopia in 2000 and recovered over the following years. Although she has often been nicknamed Lucy's baby, the specimen has been dated at 3.3 million years ago, approximately 100,000 years older than "Lucy (Australopithecus), Lucy" (dated to about 3.2 million years ago). Selam is also known as the Dikika Child. The word "Selam" means "peace" in Amharic. Discovery The fossils were discovered by Zeresenay Alemseged, and are remarkable for their age and condition. On 20 September 2006, the journal ''Nature'' presented the findings of a dig in Dikika, Ethiopia, a few miles south of Hadar, Ethiopia, Hadar, the well-known site where the fossil hominin known as Lucy was found. The recovered skeleton comprises almost the entire skull and torso and many parts of the limbs. The feat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucy (fossil)
AL 288-1, commonly known as Lucy or Dinkinesh (), is a collection of several hundred pieces of fossilized bone comprising 40 percent of the skeleton of a female of the Hominini, hominin species ''Australopithecus afarensis''. It was discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia, at Hadar, Ethiopia, Hadar, a site in the Awash Valley of the Afar Triangle, by Donald Johanson, a Paleoanthropology, paleoanthropologist of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Lucy is an early australopithecine and is dated to about 3.2 million years ago. The skeleton presents a small skull akin to that of non-hominin apes, plus evidence of a walking-gait that was bipedalism, bipedal and upright, akin to that of Homo (genus), humans (and other Hominini, hominins); this combination supports the view of human evolution that bipedalism preceded increase in brain size. A 2016 study proposes that ''Australopithecus afarensis'' was, at least partly, Arboreal locomotion, tree-dwelling, though the extent of this is debat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amharic
Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populations in Ethiopia. The language serves as the official working language of the Ethiopian federal government, and is also the official or working language of several of Ethiopia's federal regions. In 2020 in Ethiopia, it had over 33.7 million mother-tongue speakers of which 31 million are ethnically Amhara, and more than 25.1 million second language speakers in 2019, making the total number of speakers over 58.8 million. Amharic is the largest, most widely spoken language in Ethiopia, and the most spoken mother-tongue in Ethiopia. Amharic is also the second most widely spoken Semitic language in the world (after Arabic). Amharic is written left-to-right using a system that grew out of the Geʽez script. The segmental writing system in whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Main-belt Asteroid
The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets. The identified objects are of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, and, on average, are about one million kilometers (or six hundred thousand miles) apart. This asteroid belt is also called the main asteroid belt or main belt to distinguish it from other asteroid populations in the Solar System. The asteroid belt is the smallest and innermost circumstellar disc in the Solar System. Classes of small Solar System bodies in other regions are the near-Earth objects, the centaurs, the Kuiper belt objects, the scattered disc objects, the sednoids, and the Oort cloud objects. About 60% of the main belt mass is contained in the four largest asteroids: Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea. The total mass of the asteroid bel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asteroid
An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). Asteroids are rocky, metallic, or icy bodies with no atmosphere, and are broadly classified into C-type asteroid, C-type (carbonaceous), M-type asteroid, M-type (metallic), or S-type asteroid, S-type (silicaceous). The size and shape of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from small rubble piles under a kilometer across to Ceres (dwarf planet), Ceres, a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter. A body is classified as a comet, not an asteroid, if it shows a coma (tail) when warmed by solar radiation, although recent observations suggest a continuum between these types of bodies. Of the roughly one million known asteroids, the greatest number are located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, approximately 2 to 4 astronomical unit, AU ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psyche (spacecraft)
''Psyche'' ( ) is a NASA Discovery Program space mission launched on October 13, 2023, to explore the origin of planetary cores by orbiting and studying the metallic asteroid 16 Psyche beginning in 2029. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) manages the project. The spacecraft will not land on the asteroid, but will orbit it from August 5, 2029, to October 31, 2031, spending 817 days in orbit. Psyche uses solar-powered Hall-effect thrusters for propulsion and orbital maneuvering, the first interplanetary spacecraft to use that technology. It's also the first mission to use laser optical communications beyond the Earth-Moon system. Asteroid 16 Psyche is the heaviest known M-type asteroid, and may be an exposed iron core of a protoplanet, the remnant of a violent collision with another object that stripped off its mantle and crust. On January 4, 2017, the ''Psyche'' mission was selected for NASA's Discovery #14 mission. History ''Psyche'' was submitted by Lindy Elkins ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
