The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched a spacecraft on October 16 to explore eight Trojan asteroids of Jupiter in a mission that will last 12 years.
The Atlas V rocket, responsible for propelling the spacecraft into space, lifted off at 5:34 AM local time on October 16, which is 4:34 PM on the same day in Hanoi, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA.
The Lucy spacecraft was launched from the Florida coast. (Video: NASA)
Named after a fossil of an ancient ancestor, Lucy becomes the first spacecraft to use solar power for deep space exploration, tasked with observing the largest number of asteroids ever. It will approach and study eight Trojan asteroids of Jupiter, helping NASA gather new insights into the formation history of the solar system.
Lucy’s first encounter will be with the Donaldjohanson asteroid in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, expected to occur in 2025. From 2027 to 2033, it will continue to visit seven other Trojan asteroids, with the largest object having a diameter of up to 95 kilometers.
The spacecraft will approach its targets within approximately 400 kilometers of their surfaces and use scientific instruments and antennas to investigate their geology, including composition, mass, density, and volume.
Lucy is equipped with a thermal emission spectrometer capable of detecting infrared radiation from a distance, allowing it to map the surface temperatures of the asteroids. By measuring temperatures at different times of the day, the research team can infer physical characteristics such as the amount of dust, sand, or rock.
Simulation of Lucy exploring Jupiter’s asteroids. (Photo: NASA)
The Trojan asteroids of Jupiter, estimated to number over 7,000, are remnants from the formation of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—the giant planets in our solar system. Astronomers believe they hold crucial clues about the composition and material conditions in the protoplanetary disk that formed the solar system, including Earth.
“One of the amazing things about the Trojan asteroid group as we began our ground-based studies is their significant differences, especially in color. Some are gray, while others are red, suggesting that these bodies formed at varying distances from the Sun before moving to their current orbits,” said Hal Leviso, the lead researcher of the mission.
