NASA is set to launch on Saturday the first-of-its-kind mission called Lucy to study the Trojan asteroids of Jupiter, two large clusters of space objects that scientists say are remnants of the primary material that formed the outer planets of the solar system.
Kyiv. Ukraine. Ukraine Gate – October 17, 2021 – Video
The space probe, packed in a special cargo capsule, is scheduled to launch from a station at Cape Canaveral, Florida at 5:34 a.m. Eastern Time (9:34 GMT) on a United Launch Alliance (UAL) Atlas V rocket.
If all goes according to plan, Lucy will be sent into space on a 12-year expedition to study a record number of asteroids. The mission will be the first to explore the Trojans, thousands of rocky objects orbiting the Sun in two swarms – one in front of the giant gas planet Jupiter, and the other behind it.
It is believed that the largest known Trojans, named after the warriors of Greek mythology, have a diameter of up to 225 kilometers.
Scientists hope that a survey of the seven Trojans by Lucy will provide new clues to how the planets in the solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago and what shaped their current configuration.
Lucy is equipped with a set of high-tech instruments, including a hybrid thermal imager and infrared spectrometer, L’Ralph (which will study the chemical composition of the surface of each asteroid), and black-and-white cameras that researchers will use to analyze asteroids.
According to NASA, asteroids, which are believed to be rich in carbon compounds, may even give a new understanding of the origin of organic materials and life on Earth.
“Trojan asteroids are remnants of the first days of our solar system, in fact, fossils of planetary formation,” NASA quoted Harold Lewison, the mission’s chief researcher at the Southwestern Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
Also, “Lucy” will fly past an asteroid in the main asteroid belt of the Solar System, named “Donald Johansson” in honor of a leading researcher of the fossilized ancestor of man, known as “Lucy”, from which the NASA mission got its name. The Lucy fossil, discovered in Ethiopia in 1974, was in turn named after the Beatles’ hit Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
The asteroid probe “Lucy” will go down in the history of space flight. According to NASA, it will be the first spacecraft to return to Earth from the outer solar system.
The probe will use rocket engines for maneuvering in space and two rounded solar panels, each the width of a school bus, to recharge the batteries that will power the elements in the much smaller central hull of the spacecraft.
Read Also: NASA helicopter successfully landed on Mars
Source: Ukrgate
