‘Incredible milestone’: NASA successfully launches a space mission to study Jupiter’s distant Trojan asteroids (video)

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Oct 16, 2021 19:13 GMT

Over the next 12 years, Lucy is set to fly along with a major belt asteroid and seven Trojan asteroids, making it the agency’s first mission to explore many different asteroids.

NASA successfully launched a space mission on Saturday LucyOver the next 12 years, it will study Jupiter’s distant Trojan asteroids, with the goal of shedding light on the origins of the Solar System, as described in release published on their website.

The mission was launched into space by a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41, located at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (Florida, USA).

In search of puzzles

It is scheduled around The next 12 years Lucy flies along with a major belt asteroid and seven Trojan asteroids, making it the agency’s first mission to explore many different asteroids.

Lucy embodies NASA’s perpetual quest to get out into the universe for exploration and science, Understand the universe better “I can’t wait to see what mysteries the mission unlocks!” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

The text notes that this mission will allow scientists to explore two swarms of Trojan asteroids that share an orbit around the Sun with Jupiter. They are believed to be the remains of the material that formed the giant planets. Studying it could provide previously unknown information about the formation and evolution of our solar system.

“diamonds in the Sky”

“It will be several years before we reach the first Trojan asteroid, but these things are well worth the wait and all the effort because of their tremendous scientific value. They are like diamonds in the sky,” said Hal Levison, Lucy’s principal investigator.

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The spacecraft is already traveling almost 108000 kilometers per hour On a path that orbits the Sun and returns it to Earth in October 2022 for revision, it will have to Reach the asteroid DonaldJohansson in 2025. Two years later, a Trojan asteroid swarm is set to strike off Jupiter for the first time.

“Today we celebrate this amazing achievement and look forward to the new discoveries that Lucy will make,” said Donya Douglas Bradshaw, Project Leader for Lucy at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

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Lovell Loxley

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