NASA statements to give a high precedence to fixing people mysteries, which is why Lucy was introduced on Oct 6, 2021.
The spacecraft got its name from the fossil of the first hominid Lucy mainly because the examine of Trojan asteroids was ready to uncover the “fossil remains of world formation”, content that aggregated in the early heritage of the solar program to type planets and other celestial bodies.
Lucy’s team initially prepared to fly shut to a most important belt asteroid and six Trojan asteroids.
The “most important belt” is the so-identified as key belt or asteroid belt, a region in between Mars and Jupiter in which the biggest focus of asteroids or asteroids orbits the sunlight. Trojan asteroids are asteroids that transfer in a stable orbit all-around one particular of the so-referred to as Lagrange factors L4 and L5 of a planet’s orbit.
In this scenario it is Jupiter Trojans, a hitherto unexplored population of asteroids in the orbit of the earth Jupiter all-around the sunlight. A person group, the Greeks, is in orbit in entrance of Jupiter, the next, the Trojans, follows Jupiter.
So Lucy was at first supposed to take a look at seven asteroids, but in January 2021, thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, the crew identified that one particular of the Trojan asteroids, Eurybates, had a smaller satellite.
Then they grew to become eight asteroids and now with this newly learned satellite, Lucy is on her way to pay a visit to nine asteroids during her 12-yr journey.
“Lucy’s slogan was originally, ’12 several years, seven asteroids, a spacecraft, ‘” scientist Tom Statler advised NASA headquarters in Washington. “We have to modify the slogan of this mission over and more than all over again, but it is a excellent difficulty to have.”
This posting is dependent on a press release from NASA’s Goddard Place Flight Middle.
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