52246 Donaldjohanson size and scale context

52246 Donaldjohanson is a carbonaceous main-belt asteroid that NASA’s Lucy spacecraft flew past in 2025. The encounter revealed an elongated contact binary with two lobes joined by a narrow neck. Read its scale context, comparisons, and journey links on the canonical object page.

9P/Tempel 1Comet nucleus·7.6 km

19P/BorrellyComet nucleus·8 km

52246 DonaldjohansonC-type main-belt asteroid·8.8 km

Halley's CometComet nucleus·11 km

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Between the smallest and the largest, perspective is everything.

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 turn parts of that scale into curated essays, while focused views let you explore the same range through specific groups of objects.

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Between the smallest and the largest, perspective is everything.

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 turn parts of that scale into curated essays, while focused views let you explore the same range through specific groups of objects.

Editorial

Solar System Planets From Electron to Atoms Stars To Scale Birth And Death Of Stars Black Holes To Scale

Views

Planets of the Solar System Stars of the Universe Black holes Subatomic scale

Open Scale of Space Browse all comparisons

Comets

19P/Borrelly

19P/Borrelly is the bowling-pin-shaped comet nucleus that NASA's Deep Space 1 probe imaged in 2001 — only the second comet ever seen up close, with a dark, ridged surface and bright jets erupting from a smooth central region.

Scale fact8 kmmaximum extent

Object class: Comet nucleus
Mass: ~20 billion tonnes
Host: Solar System
Estimated age: ~4.5 billion years
Composition: Water ice, dust, frozen volatiles

Asteroids

52246 Donaldjohanson

52246 Donaldjohanson is a carbonaceous main-belt asteroid that NASA’s Lucy spacecraft flew past in 2025. The encounter revealed an elongated contact binary with two lobes joined by a narrow neck.

Scale fact8.8 kmmaximum extent

Object class: C-type main-belt asteroid
Composition: Carbonaceous rock
Estimated age: ~150 million years

Comets

Halley's Comet

Halley's Comet nucleus is the solid core of the Solar System's most famous periodic comet. ESA’s Giotto mission found it to be darker than coal and among the darkest known objects in the Solar System, with jets blasting material from localized active regions.

Scale fact11 kmmean diameter

Object class: Comet nucleus
Mass: ~220 billion tonnes
Host: Solar System
Estimated age: ~4.5 billion years
Composition: Water ice, dust, frozen volatiles