NASA preps Lucy mission to study Jupiter's Trojan asteroid swarms
NASA is set to launch a spacecraft next month on the agency's first mission to a group of asteroids near Jupiter.
The Lucy space probe is scheduled to lift off on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Oct. 16. The 12-year mission is designed to give scientists an up-close view of the so-called Trojan asteroids that share their orbit around the sun with the largest planet in the solar system.
NASA's Juno spacecraft has been circling Jupiter since 2016 but this will be the agency's first expedition to study two swarms of space rocks at the gas giant — one group that orbits the sun ahead of Jupiter and another that trails behind the planet.
"With Lucy, we're going to eight never-before-seen asteroids in 12 years with a single spacecraft," Tom Statler, the mission's project scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., said in a statement. "This is a fantastic opportunity for discovery as we probe into our solar system's distant past."
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/nasa-lucy-mission-jupiter-trojan-asteroid-rcna2409
__________________________________________________________________________________
My inner 10 year old wannabe astronomer is all agog!
= new reply since forum marked as read
