‘Dinky’ asteroid has a tiny companion that’s baffling astronomers

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Astronomers were in for a surprise when NASA's Lucy mission flew past an asteroid called Dinkinesh in November and spotted a contact binary star - two smaller space rocks touching each other - orbiting the asteroid like a moon.

It was the first time a contact binary star was discovered orbiting an asteroid.

Now researchers have had a chance to study Lucy's observations, and the findings, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, reveal that "Dinky" and its contact binary, now ...