07-10-2021 | 17:24 PM
NASA’s Lucy Mission
• NASA is ready to send its first spacecraft to study Jupiter's Trojan asteroids to glean new insights into the solar system's formation 4.5 billion years ago.
• In 2025, it will fly by the inner main-belt asteroid 52246 Donald Johanson, which was named for the discoverer of the Lucy hominin fossil.
• In 2027, it will arrive at the L4 Trojan cloud, where it will fly by four Trojans, 3548 Eurybates (with its satellite), 15094 Polymele, 11351 Leucus, and 21900 Orus.
• After these flybys, Lucy will return to the vicinity of the Earth whereupon it will receive a gravity assist to take it to the L5 Trojan cloud.
• Three instruments comprise the payload: a high-resolution visible imager, an optical and near-infrared imaging spectrometer and a thermal infrared spectrometer.
• Lucy’s discoveries will open new insights into the origins of our Earth and ourselves.
About Trojans:
• Trojans are small celestial bodies or asteroids, sharing the orbit of larger one. They remain in a stable orbit, nearly 60° ahead or behind the main body.
• The Jovian Trojans are asteroids that revolve the Sun in the same orbit as Jupiter and are uniformly dark with a hint of burgundy colour, and have matte surfaces that reflect little sunlight.
• The Trojans are stabilized by the Sun and its largest planet in a gravitational balancing act. There may be as many Trojans as there are asteroids in the asteroid belt.
• These primitive bodies hold vital clues to deciphering the history of the solar system, and perhaps even the origins of organic material on Earth.
