Key facts
- Category
- Asteroids
- Object class
- C-type main-belt asteroid
- Composition
- Carbonaceous rock
- Scale fact
- 8.8 kmmaximum extent
- Estimated age
- ~150 million years
52246 Donaldjohanson
8.8 kmmaximum extent
Explore 52246 Donaldjohanson to scaleDetails
52246 Donaldjohanson is a carbonaceous main-belt asteroid that NASA’s Lucy spacecraft flew past in 2025. Initial analysis shows an elongated body about 8 kilometers long that appears to be two lobes joined by an unusually narrow, complex neck.
Lucy flew about 960 kilometers from Donaldjohanson on 20 April 2025 in a full rehearsal for its later Trojan encounters. Early images showed that the asteroid was larger and more elongated than expected, with two broad parts connected by a neck that the mission team described as unexpectedly complex. The observations constrain its shape directly; the collision history that produced it still has to be inferred from the complete dataset.
Links
- Preset views
- Wikipedia
- 52246 Donaldjohanson on Wikipedia
Size neighbors
Objects near 52246 Donaldjohanson on the scale
On the logarithmic size axis, 52246 Donaldjohanson falls between 19P/Borrelly and Halley's Comet. The band uses nearby C-type main-belt asteroid records.
Shared physical scale
50.5km
Sources
References for 52246 Donaldjohanson
Measurements and descriptive context are compiled by the Scale of Space team from the references below. If you find an error, please let us know.
- 52246 Donaldjohanson — Wikipedia
- Visual reference: Wikimedia Commons (Lucy 2025 / NASA, Public domain)
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About
Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.
Guides explain selected parts of that range, while focused views filter the objects by subject.