NASA will launch a spacecraft next month on the agency’s first mission to a group of asteroids near Jupiter.
The Lucy spacecraft will take off on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on October 16. The 12-year mission aims to give scientists a close-up look at what is called Trojan Asteroids, which shares its orbits around the sun with the largest planet in the solar system.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016, but this will be the agency’s first expedition to study two swarms of space rocks in the gas giant — one orbiting the sun in front of Jupiter and another group orbiting behind the planet. .
“With Lucy, we’re going to take one spacecraft to eight never-before-seen asteroids in 12 years,” said Tom Statler, a mission project scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington. He said in a statement. “This is a great opportunity to explore as we explore the distant past of our solar system.”
Trojan asteroids are remnants of the primordial material that formed Jupiter and the other exoplanets. Space rocks work similar to Time capsules from the early days of the solar system, about 4.5 billion years ago.
NASA officials said the Lucy mission could provide new insights into the history of the solar system, including how all the planets formed and why they align with their current composition.
During its 12-year mission, the Lucy spacecraft is expected to travel nearly 4 billion miles. The first asteroid will appear near it in 2025, when it will pass through a space rock in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, according to NASA.
The other seven close encounters with the Trojan asteroids are scheduled for 2027 to 2033.
The mission is named after the famous The discovery of a partial skeleton of a human ancestor who lived more than 3 million years ago. The paleoanthropologists who discovered them called the fossilized remains “Lucy”.
“Just as Lucy’s fossil has provided unique insights into human evolution, Lucy’s mission promises to revolutionize our understanding of the origin of planets and the formation of the solar system, including Earth,” NASA officials wrote: In the travel overview.
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