NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, which launched in 2021, is on its way to the orbit of Jupiter to study the Trojan asteroids there.
It won’t arrive there until 2027, but the spacecraft will have the opportunity to do some extra science before then, as it will soon be making a flyby of another asteroid called Dinkinesh. At less than half a mile wide, this small asteroid sits in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and it will be Lucy’s first asteroid flyby.
Lucy is scheduled to make the flyby on November 1, in a maneuver that was added to the mission as a bonus goal earlier this year. The team members realized that Lucy would be traveling close enough to the asteroid that they could make some extra maneuvers and perform a flyby, giving them the chance to check out some of the spacecraft’s asteroid-tracking instruments.
Recommended Videos It’s also the first time that the asteroid will have been observed so close. “This is the first time Lucy will be getting a close look at an object that, up to this point, has only been an unresolved smudge in the best telescopes,” said Hal Levison of the Southwest Research Institute, Lucy principal investigator, in a statement. “Dinkinesh is about to be revealed to humanity for the first time.
The flyby will be used to test out the spacecraft’s system for locating an asteroid and locking its instruments onto its location as it flies past. This is important as when Lucy eventually reaches its targets in the Trojans, it will perform flybys of 10 asteroids rather than going into orbit around any one of them. With the tracking system in place, the spacecraft should be able to point its cameras more precisely and collect more accurate data.
Related “We’ll know what the spacecraft should be doing at all times, but Lucy is so far away it takes about 30 minutes for radio signals to travel between the spacecraft and Earth, so we can’t command an asteroid encounter interactively,” said Mark Effertz, Lucy chief engineer at Lockheed Martin Space. “Instead, we pre-program all the science observations.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes Video Previews Snow & Lucy Gray Baird’s Doomed RomanceA brand new The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes video for Lionsgate's The Hunger Games prequel has been revealed.
Read more »
The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes Video Previews Snow & Lucy Gray Baird’s Doomed RomanceA brand new The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes video for Lionsgate's The Hunger Games prequel has been revealed.
Read more »
NASA's Lucy spacecraft preparing for its first asteroid flybyNASA's Lucy spacecraft is preparing for its first close-up look at an asteroid. On Nov. 1, it will fly by asteroid Dinkinesh and test its instruments in preparation for visits in the next decade to multiple Trojan asteroids that circle the sun in the same orbit as Jupiter.
Read more »
Janet Jackson, Lucy Liu, and More of the Bestest Party Pics This WeekWe’ve rounded up the best looks from celebrity events this week. Included: Janet Jackson, Lucy Liu, Kelly Rowland, and more.
Read more »
Viral Video Of Military Escort For Trump’s Plane Actually A Video GameI’m a technology reporter and founder of Paleofuture.com, a website I started in 2007 that looks at past visions of the future, from flying cars and jetpacks to utopias and dystopias. Paleofuture was formerly hosted at Smithsonian magazine (2011-2013) and Gizmodo (2013-2020).
Read more »