TRIBUN-BALI.COM, LOS ANGELES – The US space agency (NASA) on Saturday October 16, 2021 launched a spacecraft on its first mission to researching Trojan asteroids from planet Jupiter.
Trojan asteroids are two large clusters of space rock that scientists believe are remnants of ancient material that formed the outer planets of the solar system.
The spacecraft, named Lucy, which is equipped with a special cargo capsule, was launched as scheduled from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 5:34 am local time (16:34 WIB).
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The vehicle was carried by an Atlas V rocket made by the United Launch Alliance (UAL), a joint venture between Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin Corp.
Lucy’s mission is to undertake a 12-year expedition to study asteroids.
The probe will be the first to explore the Trojans, thousands of rocks orbiting the sun in two groups — one in front of the gas giant’s path planet Jupiter and another one behind him.
The largest group known as asteroid Trojan –the name of the warrior in Greek Mythology— believed to be 225 kilometers in diameter.
Scientists hope that Lucy’s close exploration of the seven Trojan asteroids will yield new clues about how the planets in the solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago and what shaped their current configuration.
Believed to be rich in carbon compounds, the asteroids may provide new insights into the origin of organic matter and life on Earth, says NASA.
“Trojan asteroids are remnants of the early life of our solar system, fossils from planet formation to be precise,” the mission’s principal investigator Harold Levison of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, was quoted as saying by NASA.
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