NASA's Lucy Mission Going to Space Soon to Probe Jupiter’s Weird Trojan Asteroids

NASA plans to launch the Lucy mission soon to investigate Jupiter's Trojan asteroids to learn more about the solar system's origin 4.5 billion years ago.

According to CNN, the Lucy mission has completed all of its prelaunch testings. NASA will launch the spacecraft on October 16 at 5:30 a.m. ET from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

In a NASA statement, Lucy project scientist Tom Statler said that the scientists would visit eight previously unseen asteroids in 12 years with the help of a single spacecraft.

The Trojan asteroids, which take their name from Greek mythology, circle the sun in two swarms, one ahead of Jupiter, our solar system's biggest planet, and the other behind it.

NASA Lucy Mission

Lucy will begin on a 12-year trip to eight distinct asteroids, one in the Main Belt between Mars and Jupiter and then seven Trojans, after getting boosts from Earth's gravity.

Hal Levison, the mission's chief scientist, explained in an NDTV report that these asteroids are quite physically distinct from one another, although they are in a relatively limited region of space. He went on to say that there are about 7,000 Trojan asteroids in all.

According to Levison, the hues of these asteroids are quite distinct. Some are grayish, while others are bright red. According to Levison, the discrepancies might show how distant they were from the Sun when they originated before taking their current path.

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Whatever Lucy discovers - according to Lori Glaze, head of NASA's planetary science division - will provide scientists with crucial information about the solar system's development.

Space.com said Lucy will surpass NASA's Juno mission, which has been orbiting Jupiter since July 2016.

Lucy's journey to Jupiter's vicinity will be lengthy and winding, with the probe making two speed-boosting flybys of Earth before going out toward the big planet. Then, in April 2025, Lucy will make its first asteroid flyby, colliding with (52246) Donaldjohanson, a rock in the asteroid belt.

Keith Noll, the Lucy project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said that Lucy will not remain at any of its asteroid targets.

Lucy, according to Noll, is virtually directly aimed at them. Other flybys don't cause Lucy to slow down. According to him, in relation to the Trojan asteroids, it's traveling at a rate of 5 to 8 kilometers [3 to 5 miles] per second.

Lucy Mission Named After Paleoanthropologist

The Lucy team named the asteroid after paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson, who was a co-discoverer of the renowned "Lucy" specimen, which is made up of the bones of a 3.2-million-year-old female of the Australopithecus afarensis hominid species. The fossil was given the name "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" after a Beatles song. The diamond-shaped emblem of the Lucy mission is a reference to the song, according to Levison.

Following Donaldjohanson (52246), the spacecraft will go to the "leading" Trojan swarm, passing by four distinct asteroids between August 2027 and November 2028. Lucy will then go to the "trailing" group in March 2033, where it will meet three space rocks.