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Nasa launches ‘Lucy’ to explore Jupiter asteroids, learn about solar system
- 12-year mission first to study Trojans, huge rocky objects orbiting the sun, the ‘fossils’ of planet formation
- Could shed more light on how Earth came to be formed, say scientists
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Nasa launched a first-of-its kind mission on Saturday to study Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids, two large clusters of space rocks that scientists believe are remnants of primordial material that formed the solar system’s outer planets billions of years ago.
The space probe, dubbed Lucy and packed inside a special cargo capsule, lifted off on schedule from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 5:34am EDT (0934 GMT), Nasa said.
Lucy’s mission is a 12-year expedition to study a record number of asteroids, eight in all. It will be the first to explore the Trojans, thousands of rocky objects orbiting the sun in two swarms – one ahead of the path of giant gas planet Jupiter, and one behind it.
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Lucy will also become the first solar-powered spacecraft to venture so far from the Sun.
The largest known Trojan asteroids, named for the warriors of Greek mythology, are believed to be as much as 225km (140 miles) in diameter.
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Scientists hope Lucy’s close-up fly-by will yield new clues to how the solar system’s planets came to be formed some 4.5 billion years ago and what shaped their present configuration.
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