1 day / second

0.5 AU

52246 Donaldjohanson

Asteroid

A dark, carbonaceous asteroid orbiting in the main belt that was named after Donald Johanson, the paleoanthropologist who discovered the famous Lucy hominin fossil.

Key Facts

orbital regime

Asteroid Belt

learn more

Wikipedia

mass

6.1880e+14 kg

radius

3.895 km

hill radius

1,361.987 km

semi-major axis

2.383 AU

eccentricity

0.187

inclination

4.426º

longitude of the ascending node

262.777º

argument of periapsis

212.796º

orbital period

3.679 years

discovery date

March 2, 1981

discovered by

Schelte J. Bus

discovery site

Siding Spring Observatory

name origins

Named after Donald Johanson, the American paleoanthropologist

dimensions

3.9 km in diameter

albedo

0.103
Spacecraft Visits
Lucy

Flyby

NASA

Launched in 2021, visited in 2025

Lucy will fly past the asteroid Donaldjohanson on April 20, 2025, marking the spacecraft's first asteroid encounter during its 12-year mission to explore Jupiter's Trojan asteroids.

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