Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
NASA will launch Mission Lucy today, which will explore the Trojan asteroid for 12 years to study the formation of the planets in the Solar System.
NASA said the Lucy mission was scheduled to take off on October 16. It will be the first spacecraft to explore the Jupiter Trojan asteroid and also the first to examine multiple independent solar system targets.
Trojan asteroids are mostly remnants of the formation of the solar system. According to NASA, these Trojan asteroids circle the sun in two groups where one precedes and the other follows Jupiter in its orbit from the sun.
This asteroid is described as a cluster of grains of rock and ice that did not become a planet when the universe formed. This asteroid is a raw material left over from the formation of the giant planets of the Solar System such as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune which share orbits with Jupiter as they revolve around the Sun.
This is why the Trojans are considered the best evidence left to learn more about the formation of the solar system. Reported NASA site, Lucy’s mission promises to revolutionize our understanding of the origin and evolution of the Solar System just as Lucy’s fossils revolutionized our understanding of humans as a species.
NASA’s spacecraft, Lucy, will study the Trojan asteroid up close and is expected to help scientists learn more about how the planets in our solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago. Apart from looking for answers as to why they ended up in their current configuration.
Scientists are said to be using Lucy’s black-and-white camera to count the number of craters on the asteroid’s surface, which will allow them to study the environment in which the asteroid was exposed billions of years ago.
Lucy’s mission, which is planned to travel for 12 years, makes it NASA’s longest mission so far. In 2025, Lucy is set to fly past Donaldjohanson, which orbits in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Quoted Business Insider, the spacecraft will also reach the first swarm of Trojans in August 2026. In September 2027, it will fly through Polymele, and Leucus in 2028 and then Orus in November 2028.
Lucy will swing back through the earth with the help of a third gravity to the other side of Jupiter. Here he will meet Ptroclus and Meonetius in 2033.
Lucy’s 12-year journey is expected to end in two ways, either returning to Earth as an artifact or being thrown into the sun or out of the solar system by Jupiter.
(TTF/ex)
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