A rare image of Lucy spacecraft passing one of the Trojan Asteroids near Jupiter.
Lucy, NASA's space mission, will be the first to study Trojan asteroids, which are leftover building blocks of the solar system's outer planets orbiting the Sun at Jupiter's distance. The mission is named after a fossilized human ancestor (dubbed "Lucy" by her discoverers) whose skeleton provided unique insight into the evolution of humanity. Similarly, the Lucy mission will transform our understanding of planetary origins and the formation of our solar system.
It can be seen that the Jovian Trojans, asteroids that orbit the Sun in the same orbit as Jupiter, are uniformly dark with a burgundy tinge and have matte surfaces that reflect little sunlight.
The rocket successfully lifted at 5:34am EDT (09:34 UTC) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, beginning Lucy’s Mission: 12 year journey to the Trojan’s asteroids which are thought to be time capsules from the birth of our Solar System more than 4 billion years ago.
Comments