Nasa has received “puzzling” data from a spacecraft that was studying a distant asteroid. The space agency’s Lucy Spacecraft left Earth in 2021, with the aim of studying “Jupiter trojans”, a set of asteroids that fly around the Sun along Jupiter’s orbit and remain largely mysterious. Recently, scientists decided to send it to visit another small object on its way, largely as a test of the systems on the spacecraft that let it track asteroids for its mission. When Lucy arrived at that object – a main belt asteroid named Dinkinesh – it found a surprise, however. Images taken of the asteroid showed that it had a satellite, which flies around the asteroid like a tiny moon of its own. Now, further examination of those images show that the satellite is not one but two objects. Those objects make up a “contact binary”, or two smaller objects that are touching each other as they fly through space. The unexpected discovery explains some of the strange data that scientists had received as they approached Lucy. But it opens up more confusion about the whole system, which one called “bizarre”. “Contact binaries seem to be fairly common in the solar system,” said John Spencer, Lucy deputy project scientist, in a statement. “We haven’t seen many up-close, and we’ve never seen one orbiting another asteroid. “We’d been puzzling over odd variations in Dinkinesh’s brightness that we saw on approach, which gave us a hint that Dinkinesh might have a moon of some sort, but we never suspected anything so bizarre!” The flyby of Dinkinesh was only intended as a test of the spacecraft’s systems but has now posed new possible research for scientists. “It’s truly marvelous when nature surprises us with a new puzzle,” said Tom Statler, Lucy program scientist from NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Great science pushes us to ask questions that we never knew we needed to ask.” “It is puzzling, to say the least,” said Hal Levison, principal investigator for Lucy, also from Southwest Research Institute. “I would have never expected a system that looks like this. In particular, I don’t understand why the two components of the satellite have similar sizes. This is going to be fun for the scientific community to figure out.” The scientists were only able to confirm the nature of the system with the multiple images that were sent back by Lucy in the wake of its encounter with Dinkinesh. Nasa is working now to get the rest of the data from the spacecraft, which might include yet more surprises. Lucy itself will continue flying through space on a journey that is due to take 12 years. Lucy is actually heading back to Earth, which it will use for a gravity assist to propel it onto the next part of its journey, back through the main asteroid belt and onto the Trojan asteroids. Read More Nasa sending VR headset up to ISS to treat astronaut’s mental health All-UK space mission will ‘push boundaries of human knowledge’ All-female Nasa astronaut team departs International Space Station on spacewalk

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Scientists are trying to work out the source of dark matter. A group want to house a giant international particle detector that would be built 3,000ft underground in a working mine in Boulby, North Yorkshire to find the cause of the mysterious space matter. “We are entering the last-chance saloon to show that these particles are the cause of dark matter, and we want to make sure Britain is at the heart of that work by building the final generation of these detectors,” physicist Professor Chamkaur Ghag of University College London told the Observer. Scientists know the universe contains more matter than can be seen directly because they can see galaxies held together in clusters when they should be flying apart. Extra mass must be generating more gravity and holding these galaxies together, Most researchers think particles called weakly interacting massive particles – Wimps - are the source of dark matter. But these Wimps are hard to detect so scientists are trying to have a proper stab at it by combining resources and working in one Yorkshire site. “And what we are striving to do in Britain is to get it built at Boulby. Essentially, we want the last-chance saloon for Wimps to be built in the UK,” said Ghag. Dark matter accounts for around 85 per cent of the universe’s mass.There are also mines in South Dakota, and near Rome in Italy that are also hunting for Wimps which could provide answers. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The world is about to see the last Supermoon of the year. When the full Moon rises on 28 September, it will be bigger and perhaps brighter than usual, because it is relatively close to the Earth. Our nearest neighbour will be a mere 361,552km away. That compares with the average distance of 384,472km. Its relative proximity means that the Moon will appear larger and more clearly in the sky than usual, and can provide an exciting opportunity for people to get a good look at our satellite. Doing so is easier than with many other celestial phenomena: you can simply look up at the sky, and see whether you can spot the difference in the Moon’s size, though looking through telescopes or binoculars could provide a good look at its surface. It is best seen at Moonrise, when it begins to rise over the horizon. The other objects in front of it will help provide a sense of scale and can make the Moon look larger than normal. This month’s Moon is also known as the Harvest Moon, so named because it comes closest to the start of Autumn. As well as coming around harvest season, the bright reflections from the Moon can be a helpful way of working into the night. There is no formal definition of a Supermoon, and some astronomers have suggested that they are overhyped. What’s more, not all Supermoons are equal, and the lack of definition means that the word can be used for moons that are only slightly closer than normal. But they can bring significant increases in the amount of light that appears on Earth: Supermoons cast about 30 per cent more light than when the Moon is at its dimmest, according to the Natural History Museum. The museum’s planetary science researcher Sara Russell also noted that the Moon is actually moving slowly away from Earth. That means that what we call a Supermoon today was actually just the normal Moon a billion years ago. This year has been a busy one for fans of the Moon. Last month, for instance, also saw a supermoon – which also happened to collide with a Blue Moon, for the last time this decade. Read More MPs ask if Elon Musk ‘personally intervened’ on Russell Brand’s status on X Starship rocket launch window revealed by FAA India’s solar mission completes key manoeuvre, slingshots towards Sun

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