NASA sends a spacecraft to Jupiter's mysterious asteroids

NASA is sending a spacecraft to study the mysterious Trojan asteroids of Jupiter as part of the Lucy mission, which aims to gather new information about the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. The mission is named after the ancient fossil that gave researchers insight into the evolution of the human race. The probe will be launched on October 16 from Cape Canaveral Space Station, Florida. The objects of study are rocky objects orbiting the Sun in two groups: one group orbits in front of Jupiter, the other behind it. After gaining momentum from the Earth’s gravitational force, Lucy embarks on a 12-year journey to eight different asteroids: one in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and seven others in the Trojan group.

“Even though they are located within a very small region of space, they are physically very different from each other,” said Hal Levison, the mission’s lead researcher on Trojan asteroids, of which there are more than 7,000 in total. “For example, they are different in color, some are gray, others are red,” he added. Their color indicates how far they formed from the Sun before they orbited their current orbit. “Whatever Lucy finds will be important information about our solar system,” said Lori Gaze, director of NASA’s planetary division. Lucy flies 400 kilometers past the surface of asteroids, examining the geology, such as mass, composition, density, and volume, using instruments and large antennas on board.

The space probe, built by Lockheed Martin, is the first solar-powered probe to work so far from the Sun and examine more asteroids than any other probe before. The total cost of the mission is $ 981 million (HUF 304.7 billion). The researchers named the fossil, discovered in Ethiopia in 1974, after the Beatles Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, as they listened to it in the excavation camp. In this context, the official logo of the NASA mission is also in the form of a diamond. If you would like to know about similar things another time, please the Facebook page of the HVG Tech section