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<ul class="summary-list"><li>On Saturday, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-advances-asteroid-tracking-space-telescope-after-years-of-limbo-2021-6">NASA</a> plans to launch its <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/osiris-rex-spacecraft-asteroids-trojan-2016-12">Lucy</a> probe to the Trojan <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-hit-ancient-middle-eastern-city-inspired-sodom-bible-story-2021-9">asteroids</a> that orbit the sun with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/5-years-of-stunning-jupiter-photos-nasa-juno-mission-2021-9">Jupiter</a>. </li><li>The Trojans are like <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fossil-footprints-humans-occupied-north-america-ice-age-2021-9">fossils</a>, unchanged since the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-animation-reveals-planets-wildly-different-speeds-2021-8">solar system</a> was born 4.6 billion years ago.</li><li><keyword id="12264053" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="lucy" source="Orion">Lucy</keyword> aims to visit eight <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">asteroids</a> - a record number of encounters.</li></ul><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hubble-space-telescope-wind-changes-jupiter-great-red-spot-2021-9">NASA</a> is about to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-launching-film-crew-to-space-station-2021-9">launch</a> an ambitious mission to explore swarms of <keyword id="12253294" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="asteroids" source="Orion">asteroids</keyword> as old as our <keyword id="11910185" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="solar-system" source="Orion">solar system</keyword>.</p><p>Those asteroids, called Trojans, orbit the sun alongside <keyword id="11949137" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="jupiter" source="Orion">Jupiter</keyword>. One group of them leads the gas giant along its orbital path, and another group trails behind. These space rocks formed during the birth of our solar system nearly 4.6 billion years ago and have remained largely unchanged ever since.</p><div type="image" title="atlas v rocket lifting off" height="1920" width="1279" msid="87050188" hostid="261"></div><p>Scientists want to find out what those time capsules hold, so <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="nasa" source="Orion">NASA</keyword> is sending a 52-foot-wide spacecraft, called Lucy, to investigate. The probe is set to launch aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Saturday morning.</p><p>Lucy is scheduled to visit eight asteroids over the next 12 years. One of those space rocks is in the solar system's main asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter, which Lucy will pass on its way to the other seven asteroids, which are part of the Trojans.</p><p>"These objects we view as being the fossils of planet formation," Hal Levison, the mission's principal investigator, said in a briefing last month.</p><div type="image" title="animated diagram of trojan asteroid leading following jupiter on orbit around the sun" height="500" width="500" msid="86839250" hostid="261"></div><p>That's where Lucy gets its name - it's a reference to the famous 3.2-million-year-old fossilized human ancestor. At the time of her discovery, in 1974, Lucy was the oldest, most complete hominin skeleton ever found. She was evidence that human ancestors walked upright, which helped paleoanthropologists piece together humans' evolutionary history. Scientists hope that <keyword id="12264054" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="trojan-asteroids" source="Orion">Trojan asteroids</keyword> can do the same for the outer solar system.</p><p>"Some of the most important planetary <keyword id="11896083" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="science" source="Orion">science</keyword> questions we're trying to answer are focused on the origin and the evolution of the solar system. Asteroids and other small bodies are really important keys to understanding that history," Lori Glaze, NASA's director of planetary science, said in the briefing.</p><div type="image" title="lucy spacecraft folded up with rocket shell closing around it" height="2136" width="1700" msid="86839251" hostid="261"></div><p>Lucy's planned journey would lead it to visit more asteroids than any prior spacecraft. It will also venture further from the sun than any solar-powered probe has ever gone.</p><h2>Watch live as Lucy launches into space</h2><p>Liftoff is scheduled for 5:34 a.m. ET on Saturday. NASA plans to start its live launch broadcast at 5 a.m. in the video embedded below.</p><p>If weather delays the launch, NASA has another 22 days in its window, with an hour-long launch opportunity each morning.</p><h2>Close encounters of the asteroid kind</h2><div type="image" title="trojan asteroids illustration rocks in space leading and following jupiter" height="1440" width="1920" msid="86839252" hostid="261"></div><p>Lucy's mission is seven years in the making. The original plan called for visits to just two asteroids, but NASA grew more ambitious as engineers and scientists designed the spacecraft and plotted its journey.</p><p>Now, the probe has a record-breaking lineup. Some of its eight stops are two-for-ones: One asteroid has its own satellite - a smaller rock trapped in its orbit - and two of Lucy's targets are a pair of binary asteroids that circle each other.</p><p>But Lucy's encounter with each space rock will be brief. The spacecraft can't slow down or land - that would require too much propellant - so it will zip within 600 miles of their surfaces, moving 3 to five 5 miles per second.</p><p>During the few hours in which it approaches and passes the asteroids, Lucy's scientific instruments will collect data on their composition, density, and size. It could even discover rocks or rings circling the asteroids - features too small to see from Earth.</p><p>By the end of Lucy's journey, NASA expects to have spent $981.1 million on the mission, according to Glaze.</p><h2>Lucy has to revisit Earth 3 times to hit its targets</h2><div type="image" title="lucy spacecraft trajectory diagram" height="2813" width="3750" msid="86839253" hostid="261"></div><p>Scientists have identified over 7,000 Trojan asteroids, split into three major types. One group resembles the space rocks in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, while the other two resemble icy objects in the Kuiper Belt on the outskirts of the solar system.</p><p>This suggests that the various types of Trojans formed through different processes, and in different parts of the solar system. Scientists aren't sure how they ended up together along Jupiter's orbit. So Lucy will visit asteroids of each type in an attempt to find out.</p><p>"Covering this diversity is key. And finding a trajectory that actually will allow us to visit all these types of objects has been a real chore," Levison said.</p><p>To reach all of its destinations, in fact, Lucy has to circle back to Earth three times to get a momentum boost from our planet's gravity. That will make it the first spacecraft to travel to Jupiter's orbit and back.</p><h2>NASA is going all in on asteroids</h2><div type="image" title="DART nasa mission approaching asteroid image edited for thumbnail" height="1406" width="2500" msid="86839254" hostid="261"></div><p>NASA is sending probes to asteroids scattered all over the solar system.</p><p>"Lucy is part of a collection of ambitious missions to study the diversity of these asteroid populations that will help us fill in more pieces of that cosmic puzzle," Glaze said.</p><p>NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has been studying asteroids and other objects in the Kuiper Belt, beyond Neptune, since it flew past Pluto in 2015.</p><p>The agency's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-bennu-is-hollow-spinning-to-death-2020-11">OSIRIS-REx</a> spacecraft, meanwhile, landed on an asteroid last year, punched into its surface, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-osiris-rex-asteroid-spacecraft-stored-pounds-of-rock-2020-10">scooped a sample of rock</a>. That probe is on its way back to Earth with the sample in tow. Japan recently completed a similar mission and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-japan-asteroid-sample-treasure-box-returns-2020-12">brought its own asteroid samples to Earth</a>, so NASA and Japan's space agency plan to trade bits of their samples.</p><div type="image" title="osiris rex landing crush rock" height="1024" width="1024" msid="86839255" hostid="261"></div><p>Other missions aim to prepare for the possibility that an asteroid could <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dinosaurs-going-extinct-before-asteroid-hit-earth-study-2021-6">strike our planet</a>. Next month, NASA plans to launch a spacecraft to slam into a nearby asteroid. That mission, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), is testing a method that could deflect space rocks off of a collision course with Earth. NASA is also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-advances-asteroid-tracking-space-telescope-after-years-of-limbo-2021-6">working on a new space telescope, called NEO (near-Earth object) Surveyor,</a> which would help scientists catalogue dangerous asteroids in our neighborhood.</p><p>Next year, NASA plans to launch yet another probe, called Psyche, to a metallic asteroid that could be the leftover core of an ancient planet.</p><p>"All of these are incredibly interesting destinations. And in each case, we're exploring places no spacecraft has ever been, so we won't know for sure what we'll discover till we get there," Glaze said. "But we know that whatever Lucy finds will give us vital clues about the formation of our solar system."</p><p><em>This post has been updated. It was originally published on October 7, 2021.</em></p>

Watch NASA launch a spacecraft to explore ancient asteroids that lead and trail Jupiter around the sun

A <keyword id="6360409" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="nasa" source="Orion">NASA</keyword> spacecraft named <keyword id="53050" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="lucy" source="Orion">Lucy</keyword>, the first mission to the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, has captured a stunning image of <keyword id="6359982" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="earth" source="Orion">Earth</keyword>, along with a photo of the Earth and the <keyword id="42440" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="moon" source="Orion">Moon</keyword>, as part of gravity assist to gain some of the orbital energy it needs to travel to this never-before-visited population of asteroids.<br /><br />NASA's Lucy spacecraft captured the image of Earth at a distance of 620,000 km. The upper left of the image includes a view of Hadar, Ethiopia, home to the 3.2 million-year-old human ancestor fossil for which the spacecraft was named, the US space agency said in a statement. <br /><br />Lucy is the first mission to explore the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, an ancient population of asteroid "fossils" that orbit around the Sun at the same distance as Jupiter. <br /><br />To reach these distant asteroids, the Lucy spacecraft's trajectory includes three Earth gravity assists to boost it on its journey to these enigmatic asteroids.<br /><br />The image was taken with Lucy's Terminal Tracking Camera (T2CAM) system, a pair of identical cameras that are responsible for tracking the asteroids during Lucy's high-speed encounters. <br /><br />The T2CAM system was designed, built and tested by Malin Space Science Systems; Lockheed Martin Integrated the T2CAMs onto the Lucy spacecraft and operates them.<br /><br />Lucy spacecraft also captured an image of the Earth and the Moon from a distance of 1.4 million km. <br /><br />These Earth flybys provide Lucy with the speed required to reach the Trojan asteroids - small bodies that orbit the Sun at the same distance as Jupiter. <br /><br />On its 12-year journey, Lucy will fly by a record-breaking number of asteroids and survey their diversity, looking for clues to better understand the formation of the solar system.<br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO:<br /><a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/sustainability/news/prioritising-fossils-fuels-over-cleaner-energy-alternatives-amplified-indian-heart-related-mortalities-by-55lancet-countdown-report/articleshow/95096593.cms">Prioritising fossils fuels over cleaner energy alternatives amplified Indian heart-related mortalities by 55%: Lancet Countdown report</a><br /><a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/facebook-and-instagram-will-soon-have-to-pay-a-30-tax-to-apple-for-paid-posts-on-their-platform/articleshow/95096482.cms">Facebook and Instagram will soon have to pay a 30% tax to Apple for paid posts on their platform</a><br /></strong>

NASA's Lucy spacecraft captures images of Earth, Moon ahead of gravity assist

Space 2021: All the Mars landings, eclipses, astronaut flights, rocket launches, and other big missions to look for this year

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Every few years, NASA picks a roughly $450 million mission to explore the solar system.<p>On Wednesday, however, the space agency <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-two-missions-to-explore-the-early-solar-system">announced not one, but two new space probes</a> from a batch of five finalists.</p><p>One will fly out to Jupiter to explore its swarms of mysterious, burgundy-colored asteroids.</p><p>A second mission will visit the all-metal asteroid 16 Psyche: the core of a dead planet that was almost entirely destroyed billions of years ago.</p><p>"These missions will help us learn about the infancy of our solar system, a period just 10 million years after the birth of our sun," Jim Green, the leader of NASA's planetary <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> program, said in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYdCU1QQQro">a NASA video</a>.</p><p>The two spacecraft join a historic fleet of 12 other Discovery-class missions, and the program has proven nothing less than revolutionary.</p><p>For example, Discovery-class spacecraft are how humanity - for the first time - <a href="http://near.jhuapl.edu/">orbited</a> an asteroid, <a href="http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html">brought</a> fresh comet dust to Earth, <a href="http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/">explored</a> a dwarf planet in Asteroid Belt, <a href="https://kepler.nasa.gov/index.cfm">found</a> thousands of Earth-like planet candidates, <a href="https://discovery.nasa.gov/grail.cfml">mapped</a> the moon's gravity, and <a href="https://discovery.nasa.gov/missions.cfml">other feats</a>.</p><p>Here's what we know about NASA's newest Discovery missions.</p><h2>Lucy: Exploring ancient 'fossils' of the solar system</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Jupiter is not only the solar system's largest and most massive planet, but also its traffic cop for asteroids floating through space.</p><p>But ahead of and behind Jupiter, there's a mysterious traffic jam: two swarms of <a href="http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/T/Trojan+Asteroids">Trojan asteroids</a>, or space rocks that follow planets.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Humanity knows precious little about Jupiter's Trojans, other than their color (<a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=pia16211">a dark, wine-like burgundy</a>) and the fact they're nearly as old as the sun. This makes them figurative "fossils" of the solar system.<p>"We know very little about these objects," Green said. "They may be captured asteroids, comets, or even Kuiper Belt objects."</p><p>The <a href="http://www.swri.org/9what/releases/2015/swri-nasa-contract-mission-jupiter-trojan-asteroid.htm#.WG0-zbYrJTY">Lucy</a> spacecraft could learn untold secrets about the solar system's history by visiting six of Jupiter's Trojan asteroids.</p><p>The 11-year-long mission will launch in 2021, led by <a href="http://www.swri.org/iProfiles/ViewiProfile.asp?k=9c0p1018f760p35">Harold Levison</a>, a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute.</p><p>"Lucy, like the human fossil for which it is named, will revolutionize the understanding of our origins," Levison said in <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-two-missions-to-explore-the-early-solar-system">a NASA press release</a>.</p><h2>Psyche: Probing the heart of a dead world</h2><p>The early solar system was a nightmare. As soon as the embryos of planets coalesced from dust and gas some 4.6 billion years ago, they would smash together.</p><p>Earth and the moon <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/moon-formed-in-head-on-collision-2016-1">formed out of such a cataclysm</a>, but other worlds weren't so lucky.</p><p>One is the metallic core of a Mars-size planet, called 16 Psyche - what Green said is "a very large and rare" asteroid located in Asteroid Belt. It's about 155 miles (250 km) wide and thought to be made of <a href="https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/psyche-unexpected-discoveries-metal-world">pure nickel, yet weirdly covered in some water</a>.</p><p>The Psyche probe, set to launch in October 2023, endeavors to visit the dead planet and probe its mysteries.</p><p>Leading the mission will be Arizona State University space scientist<a href="https://webapp4.asu.edu/directory/person/2437950"> Linda Elkins-Tanton</a>, who said "this is the only way humans will ever visit a [planet's] core" in NASA's release.</p><h2>The 3 missions that didn't make NASA's cut</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>The announcement of two new Discovery missions was especially crucial, says <a href="https://www.psi.edu/about/staffpage/sykes">Mark Sykes</a>, director and CEO of the Planetary Science Institute, who asserts that NASA has lagged behind on its promise with the 25-year-old NASA program.</p><p>"[W]hen NASA says that there have been 12 Discovery missions, consider that 10 of them were selected more than 15 years ago," Sykes, whose Discovery-class <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mystery-pyramid-nasa-asteroid-belt-2016-3">Dawn mission</a> is soon coming to an end, told Business Insider in an email. He said picking two is "an important first step towards rebuilding the program."</p><p>However, Sykes was part of one of the five Discovery finalists that didn't make the cut. His mission? A hazardous asteroid-hunting mission, called NEOCam.</p><p>Earth is <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-initiative-to-protect-earth-from-asteroids-2016-1">a shooting gallery</a> for small asteroids and comets, yet we don't yet have a way to find such space rocks - some of which have the potential to level major cities in an instant.</p><p>NEOCam, named after dangerous near-Earth objects (NEOs), would have helped discover <a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4727">10 times the objects</a> of any space rock-hunting mission to date.</p><p>Although NEOCam didn't get $450 million in funding, like Lucy and Psyche, NASA plans to fund the mission for at least an additional year.</p><p>"The NEOCam mission, in addition to providing fundamental science about small bodies throughout the inner solar system, performs a mission that is needed to satisfy the Congressional mandate to find 90% of NEOs 140 [meters] or greater that threaten the Earth," Sykes said.</p><p>"Hopefully, resources will be identified this next year to fund NEOCam and support these objectives," he said.</p><p>Also on NASA's cutting-room floor were two Venus spacecraft proposals: DAVINCI, which would have dropped a probe to the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-venus-surface-is-like-2017-1">planet's hellish surface</a>, and VERITAS, which would have studied the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/venus-deadly-surface-conditions-2016-12">Earth-like world</a> from above.</p><div><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:57%"></div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/molten-salt-reactor-technology-power-world-millions-years-2016-12">This Cold War-era technology could safely power the world for millions of years</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="hoOXhiODE6mtYAnzOSgYhFwj_jwPpGtb" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

You Searched For "jupiter trojan asteroids" and got 4 results

Watch NASA launch a spacecraft to explore ancient asteroids that lead and trail Jupiter around the sun

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

NASA's Lucy spacecraft captures images of Earth, Moon ahead of gravity assist

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Space 2021: All the Mars landings, eclipses, astronaut flights, rocket launches, and other big missions to look for this year

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NASA just announced it will probe a dead planet's core

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