As of this month, NASA officially approved the construction of their asteroid hunting
spacecraft, Lucy. Little Lucy will visit two large asteroid clusters near Jupiter known as
the Trojan asteroids. It will be the very first time NASA visits these rocky clusters
and, within 12 years, Lucy will analyze eight asteroids—both above and below their surfaces.
Asteroids are remnants of our 4 billion year old past, and unveiling their origins could
not only revolutionize our knowledge of planet formation, but maybe also provide insight
about Earth, its ancient history, and how we got here. No other space mission in history
has been launched to as many different destinations in independent orbits around our sun, but
the difficulty will be well worth it. This mission is truly tantalizing because the asteroids
are so diverse. The Trojan asteroids are broken up into two
large swarms that orbit the Sun along Jupiter’s path; one ahead of the planet and another
behind it. They’re loosely held together by the gravitational pull of the Sun and the
massive planet, creating a bit of delicate dance. Because there’s so much to learn
from each cluster, scientists wanted to pick asteroids that represented three major types
of bodies known as C-, P-, and D- types. Since these asteroids are in various locations, they
can reveal different exciting discoveries, like how collisions worked billions of years
ago, what kings of life-forming materials the asteroids may be made of, and how our planets formed.
Although Lucy won’t be landing on any of the asteroids, the craft will be mapping their
surface geology, color, composition, densities, AND will even be keeping a look out for surprising
mini satellites or rings that the asteroids could be pulling in. Now how will it do this?
Well of course a spacecraft wouldn’t be anything without its sweet suite of instruments.
Lucy may be over 13 meters long, but all its remote-sensing instruments will actually be
kept in the body of the craft which is less than a meter in length. The first is L’Ralph
which is a multispectral visible imaging camera and infrared spectrometer. This instrument
will be determining how active the asteroids are by looking at the unique composition of
silicates, ices, and other organics. Next up is L’TES, the thermal emission spectrometer.
This instrument is similar to what’s on OSIRIS-REx, and it will help Lucy understand
how heat interacts with the asteroids: what's their thermal inertia like, how do they retain heat, and
what does all of that mean about their composition. And then there’s L'LORRI, which is the Long
Range Reconnaissance imager. It’s basically a high-def camera that will be taking detailed
pictures of the asteroids. And finally Lucy’s High-Gain antenna that will help it
determine the mass of each asteroid. Launching in October 2021, Lucy will need
two gravity-assists from Earth, meaning it will use our planet to gain momentum on the
first leg of its journey. Lucy will meet its first asteroid from the main asteroid belt
in 2025. Here Lucy will be able to do a bit of a test run with its instruments. And from there,
the craft will make its way over to the outer part of our solar system towards the first
Trojan asteroid cluster. There it will meet four other asteroids,and then loop around
Earth once, meeting a binary asteroid pair in the second cluster. After 12 years, and
8 asteroids, Lucy will be all wrapped up. With a meticulous course like this, timing
is pretty vital. So unlike other NASA projects, like the James Webb telescope that can be postponed
without too much mission compromise, LUCY only has a 20-day window to get off the ground
in October 2021. With this latest construction approval, the team is on track for their highly
anticipated launch. Lucy’s discoveries could unlock the mysteries and answer the questions we have about
the solar system, Earth, and even ourselves. I guess we just have to wait and see.
Fun fact: Lucy got its name from the fossilized human ancestor that helped us understand human evolution.
So the NASA and the Southwest research institute team hope that this craft can do the same
for our understanding of solar system evolution. I'm excited to see what it finds! If
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Thanks so much for watching and I’ll see you next time.