NASA's asteroid hunter Lucy soars into sky with diamonds

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A NASA spacecraft named Lucy rocketed into the entity with diamonds Saturday connected a 12-year quest to research 8 asteroids.

Seven of the mysterious abstraction rocks are among swarms of asteroids sharing Jupiter's orbit, thought to beryllium the pristine leftovers of planetary formation.

An Atlas V rocket blasted disconnected earlier dawn, sending Lucy connected a roundabout orbital travel spanning astir 4 cardinal miles (6.3 cardinal kilometers).

Lucy is named aft the 3.2 million-year-old skeletal remains of a quality ancestor recovered successful Ethiopia astir a half-century ago. That find got its sanction from the 1967 Beatles opus “Lucy successful the Sky with Diamonds,” prompting NASA to nonstop the spacecraft soaring with set members' lyrics and different luminaries’ words of contented imprinted connected a plaque. The spacecraft besides carried a disc made of lab-grown diamonds for 1 of its subject instruments.

The paleoanthropologist down the fossil Lucy discovery, Donald Johanson, said helium was filled with wonderment astir this “intersection of our past, our contiguous and our future.”

“That a quality ancestor who lived truthful agelong agone stimulated a ngo which promises to adhd invaluable accusation astir the enactment of our star strategy is incredibly exciting,” said Johanson, of Arizona State University, who traveled to Cape Canaveral for the launch.

Lucy’s $981 cardinal ngo is the archetypal to purpose for Jupiter’s alleged Trojan entourage: thousands — if not millions — of asteroids that stock the state giant’s expansive orbit astir the sun. Some of the Trojan asteroids precede Jupiter successful its orbit, portion others way it.

Despite their orbits, the Trojans are acold from the satellite and mostly scattered acold from each other. So there’s fundamentally zero accidental of Lucy getting clobbered by 1 arsenic it swoops past its targets, said Southwest Research Institute’s Hal Levison, the mission’s main scientist.

Lucy volition swoop past Earth adjacent October and again successful 2024 to get capable gravitational oomph to marque it each the mode retired to Jupiter’s orbit. On the mode there, the spacecraft volition zip past asteroid Donaldjohanson betwixt Mars and Jupiter. The aptly named stone volition service arsenic a 2025 warm-up enactment for the subject instruments.

Drawing powerfulness from 2 immense circular star wings, Lucy volition pursuit down 5 asteroids successful the starring battalion of Trojans successful the precocious 2020s. The spacecraft volition past swoop backmost toward Earth for different gravity assistance successful 2030 that volition plaything it backmost retired to the trailing Trojan cluster, wherever it volition zip past the last 2 targets successful 2033.

It’s a complicated, circuitous way that had NASA’s subject ngo chief, Thomas Zurbuchen, shaking his caput astatine first. “You’ve got to beryllium kidding. This is possible?” helium recalled asking.

Lucy volition walk wrong 600 miles (965 kilometers) of each target; the biggest 1 is astir 70 miles (113 kilometers) across.

“Are determination mountains? Valleys? Pits? Mesas? Who knows? I’m definite we’re going to beryllium surprised,” said Johns Hopkins University’s Hal Weaver, who’s successful complaint of Lucy’s black-and-white camera. “But we tin hardly hold to spot what ... images volition uncover astir these fossils from the enactment of the star system.”

NASA plans to motorboat different ngo adjacent period to trial whether humans mightiness beryllium capable to change an asteroid's orbit — signifier successful lawsuit Earth ever has a slayer stone headed this way.

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