This content was posted on October 16, 2021 – 4:07 pm
SAO PAULO (Reuters) – NASA launched an unprecedented mission this Saturday to study Jupiter’s “Trojan” asteroids, two large clumps of space rock that scientists believe are remnants of material that formed outer planets in the Solar System.
The space probe, nicknamed Lucy and packed inside a special cargo pod, took off at the scheduled time from the US Air Force Station at Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 6:34 am EDT, NASA said. The equipment was launched on an Atlas V rocket from United Launch Alliance (UAL), a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Lucy’s mission is a 12-year expedition to study record numbers of asteroids. It will be the first to explore the “Trojans”, thousands of rocky objects orbiting the Sun in two clusters – one in front of Jupiter’s path and the other behind it.
The largest known Trojan asteroids, named after the warriors of Greek mythology, are believed to measure up to 225 kilometers in diameter.
Scientists hope Lucy’s flight over seven Trojan rocks will provide new clues to how the solar system’s planets formed about 4.5 billion years ago and what shaped their current configuration.
Lucy will also fly over an asteroid in the Solar System’s main belt, named DonaldJohanson, named after the chief discoverer of the fossilized human ancestor known as “Lucy”. The Lucy fossil, discovered in Ethiopia in 1974, in turn inspired the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”.
The probe will use rockets to maneuver in space and two rounded solar panels, each the width of a school bus, that will recharge the batteries that power the instruments contained in Lucy’s body.
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