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52246 Donaldjohanson
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52246 Donaldjohanson (provisional designation 1981 EQ5) is a carbonaceous asteroid from the inner regions of the Asteroids' Belt, approximately 8 Km(about 5 miles) long and 3.5 Km (about 2.2 miles) at its widest point.
It was discovered on 2 March 1981, by American astronomer Schelte Bus at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia.
The C-type asteroid was the second target of the Lucy Mission, with the spacecraft flying approx. 960 Km (roughly 600 mi) from the surface on 20 April 2025, revealing the asteroid to be a "contact binary". It was named after American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson, the discoverer of the "Lucy" hominid fossil.
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