NASA's Lucy spacecraft at the Trojan asteroids
NASA's Lucy spacecraft at the Trojan asteroids
The Lucy mission will be the first to explore asteroids from the 'Jupiter Trojans' family. These are planetoids that have accumulated at two points in front of and behind the gas giant where the gravitational forces of Jupiter and the Sun cancel each other out, known as libration or Lagrange points. After the launch on 16 October 2021, the NASA spacecraft will arrive at the L4 point on Jupiter's orbit in 2027 and observe five Trojan asteroids up close in succession until 2028, as anticipated in this artist's impression. After returning to the inner Solar System, Lucy will finally investigate a system of two binary asteroids at the L5 point in 2033.
Credit:
Southwest Research Institute