The Trojan asteroids are ancient objects that contain the original material of the birth of the Solar System in an almost original state – this was discussed by Ákos Kereszturi, a researcher at the Astronomy and Earth Sciences Research Center in Wednesday’s broadcast of the current M1 channel on the launch of NASA’s space probe asteroids orbiting Jupiter.
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A space probe called Lucy will study a record number of asteroids over the next 12 years, during which time it will travel 6.5 billion kilometers. He is scheduled to pass one of the asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter in April 2025, and will also visit Jupiter’s mysterious seven Trojan asteroids in August 2027, the show said.
Lucy aims to gather new information about the formation of the Solar System 4.5 billion years ago. The mission got its name from an ancient fossil called Lucy, which provided insight into the evolution of the human race.
From the period of the formation of the Solar System, asteroids and comet nuclei are the celestial bodies that have survived. These, in turn, form a transitional link between the ancient gas and the final planets, as the ancient fossil was called Lucy, Ákos Kereszturi explained in the show. Examining these can give a more accurate picture of what material and processes the solar system was formed from, he added.
The astronomer said the device, the first solar-powered probe to work so far from the Sun, will go five times farther than where the Earth orbits. Therefore, the most difficult task was to solve the energy supply of the space probe, which is each provided by huge solar cells with a diameter of more than seven meters each.
The researcher added that the orbit of the spacecraft orbits back to Earth three times during so-called swing maneuvers to use its gravity for its path.
He added that Trojan asteroids, named after Greek mythology, orbit the Sun in two swarms in the same orbit as Jupiter, with one group walking in front of the planet and the other behind it. The spacecraft will first examine the asteroids moving in front of Jupiter, then the celestial bodies behind Jupiter, visiting many in a row.
The spacecraft will travel a few hundred kilometers near the asteroids. On the one hand, it will examine the shape and surface morphology of asteroids, the materials they consist of, and how their matter evolved in this particular dynamic situation.
“These are very ancient objects, which contain the ancestral material of the birth of the Solar System in an almost original state,” Ákos Kereszturi emphasized. In addition, according to the astronomer, they are also very mysterious, as it is likely that a significant part of their material is water ice, but this has not yet been directly observed.
He explains that Trojan-type asteroids contain significant amounts of water because they are located where the snow line stretched in the ancient solar system. “There may have been quite a bit of water ice condensed here, but that’s not visible from afar,” he added. As a result of the mission of the spacecraft launched on Saturday, we can get a more accurate picture of the material from which the solar system was born, as well as where the water ice that reached the other celestial bodies came from, the researcher concluded.
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