NASA: Lucy Mission

In News

• NASA is set to launch its first spacecraft to study Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids.

About the Mission

• Origin: 
  • Named after an ancient fossil 3.2 million-year-old ancestor who belonged to a species of hominins.
• Aim & Objective:
  • To get insights into the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago.
  • Investigating the group of rocky bodies that are circling the Sun in two swarms- one preceding Jupiter and the other trailing behind it.
• Duration: 
  • A 12-year journey of eight different asteroids including one in the Main Belt between Mars & Jupiter and seven Trojans. 
• Donald Johnson Asteroid:
  • The spacecraft’s first encounter will be with an asteroid that lies in the main belt that can be found between Mars and Jupiter. 
  • This asteroid is named ‘Donald Johnson’ after the paleoanthropologist who discovered the fossilised remains of “Lucy”.

Significance

• Trojan asteroids are formed from the same material that of Planets formed
• Origins and evolution of the Solar System.

What are Asteroids?

• About:
  • Rocky objects revolving around the sun that are too small to be called planets. 
• Classification based on their orbits:
  • Main asteroid belt b/w Mars and Jupiter.
  • Trojan asteroids orbit a larger planet in two special places, known as Lagrange points, where the gravitational pull of the sun and the planet are balanced.
    • NASA reports the presence of Jupiter, Neptune and Mars trojans. In 2011, they reported an Earth trojan as well.
• Near-Earth Asteroids (NEA), circle closer to Earth than the sun.

Source: IE