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Lucy is ready to reveal the secrets of space. Are you ready to learn them?
NASA's Lucy spacecraft is preparing for its first close pass of an asteroid. On November 1, it will fly past the Dinkinesh asteroid and test its instruments ahead of visits to several Trojan asteroids that orbit the Sun in the same orbit as Jupiter in the next decade.
The Dinkinesh asteroid, less than half a mile or 1 kilometer in diameter, orbits the Sun in the main asteroid belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Lucy has been tracking Dinkinesh since September 3; this will be the first of 10 asteroids that Lucy will visit during its 12-year journey.
"This is the first time that Lucy will be looking closely at an object that up to this point has only been a blurry spot in the best telescopes," said Hal Levison, principal investigator of the Lucy project at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Dinkinesh will be introduced to humanity for the first time."
The main goal of the Lucy mission, launched on October 16, 2021, is to study Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, a population of small bodies that have never been explored before and that orbit the Sun in two "swarms" preceding and following Jupiter in its orbit.
While passing by Dinkinesh, the team will test its terminal tracking system, which will allow the spacecraft to autonomously determine the asteroid's location. This meeting is designed to test Lucy systems, so scientific observations will be easier than for the main mission objectives.
After passing by Dinkinesh, the Lucy spacecraft will continue its orbit around the Sun, returning to Earth's vicinity for its second gravitational maneuver in December 2024. This pulse from Earth will send it back to the main asteroid belt for its passage past Donaldjohanson in 2025, and then to Jupiter's Trojan asteroids in 2027.
NASA's Lucy spacecraft is preparing for its first close pass of an asteroid. On November 1, it will fly past the Dinkinesh asteroid and test its instruments ahead of visits to several Trojan asteroids that orbit the Sun in the same orbit as Jupiter in the next decade.
The Dinkinesh asteroid, less than half a mile or 1 kilometer in diameter, orbits the Sun in the main asteroid belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Lucy has been tracking Dinkinesh since September 3; this will be the first of 10 asteroids that Lucy will visit during its 12-year journey.
"This is the first time that Lucy will be looking closely at an object that up to this point has only been a blurry spot in the best telescopes," said Hal Levison, principal investigator of the Lucy project at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Dinkinesh will be introduced to humanity for the first time."
The main goal of the Lucy mission, launched on October 16, 2021, is to study Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, a population of small bodies that have never been explored before and that orbit the Sun in two "swarms" preceding and following Jupiter in its orbit.
While passing by Dinkinesh, the team will test its terminal tracking system, which will allow the spacecraft to autonomously determine the asteroid's location. This meeting is designed to test Lucy systems, so scientific observations will be easier than for the main mission objectives.
After passing by Dinkinesh, the Lucy spacecraft will continue its orbit around the Sun, returning to Earth's vicinity for its second gravitational maneuver in December 2024. This pulse from Earth will send it back to the main asteroid belt for its passage past Donaldjohanson in 2025, and then to Jupiter's Trojan asteroids in 2027.
