NASA mission Lucy travels to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids. There are believed to be more than a million Trojans over 1 km. on the path of jupiter
No other space mission in history has launched to so many different destinations in independent orbits around our sun. Lucy will show us, for the first time, the diversity of the primordial bodies that built the planets.
A Trojan asteroid is one that shares its orbit with a larger planet or moon, orbiting around points known as Langrage points.
The first Trojan to be discovered was named Achilles. They decided to call them Trojans, because each discovery would be named after a figure in Trojan War mythology. The total number of Jupiter Trojans over 1 km is believed to be around 1 million.
Trojan asteroids may contain 1 minute Solar System information. They are unaltered time capsules that formed four billion years ago. NASA chose the name of Lucy for mission launched to explore them reminiscent of Astrolopithecus afarensis, Lucy, from more than three million years ago, the best-known remains of the earliest hominids found in Africa. Lucy points to the origin of new species that left life in the treetops to conquer the Earth. NASA’s mission hopes to find answers to the origin of our Solar System.
During the course of your mission, Lucy It will fly through seven Trojans from Jupiter.
The Trojan asteroid swarms associated with Jupiter are believed to be remnants of the primordial material that formed the outer planets.
Trojans orbit the Sun in two loose groups, with one group ahead of Jupiter in their path and the other behind. grouped around the two Lagrangian Points Equidistant from the Sun and Jupiter, Trojans are stabilized by the Sun and its largest planet in an act of gravitational balancing. These primitive bodies contain vital clues to decipher the history of the solar system.
Lucy is the first space mission to study Trojans. The mission takes its name from the fossilized human ancestor (called “Lucy” by its discoverers), whose skeleton provided a unique insight into the evolution of humanity.
Lucy will complete a 12-year journey to eight different asteroids: one main-belt asteroid and seven Trojans, four of which are binary systems. Lucy’s complex path will lead her to both groups of Trojans and will give us our first close look at the three main body types in the swarms (so-called C, P, and D types).
Type P and D Trojans resemble those found in the Kuiper belt, composed of icy bodies that extend beyond Neptune’s orbit. Types C are found mainly in the outer parts of the main asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter. All Trojans are believed to be abundant in dark carbon compounds. Under an insulating layer of dust, they are likely to be rich in water and other volatile substances.