{"id":50881,"date":"2023-11-03T05:20:50","date_gmt":"2023-11-03T05:20:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cb7ca6c0-cde8-495e-aa9d-8cea1b3c3ede"},"modified":"2023-11-03T07:32:33","modified_gmt":"2023-11-03T07:32:33","slug":"nasa-lucy-mission-to-explore-jupiters-trojan-asteroids","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/rss_feed\/nasa-lucy-mission-to-explore-jupiters-trojan-asteroids\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Lucy mission to explore Jupiter’s Trojan Asteroids"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lucy mission will study Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids and help scientists unlock clues about the early Solar System. <\/p>

By Dr Carly Howett\n <\/p>

Published: Friday, 03 November 2023 at 05:20 AM<\/p>

\n\n

On 16 October 2021 the NASA Lucy mission launched on its 12-year journey to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids.<\/p>

Jupiter<\/a>‘s Trojan asteroids are remnants of the Solar System\u2019s formation<\/a>, and will provide astronomers with a valuable insight into how our planetary system formed, like archaeologists piecing together the lives of the ancients.<\/p>

NASA’s Lucy mission is well on its way to the Trojans, and is due to reach the asteroids by August 2027.<\/p>

But what will Lucy encounter, and why study the Trojan asteroids<\/a>? Well, the mission could reveal some of the secrets regarding the formation of our Solar System.<\/p>

Why do astronomers study samples from other worlds?<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/li><\/ul>What are the Trojan asteroids?<\/strong><\/h2>An artist’s impression of the Trojan asteroids, which share the same orbital path around the Sun as gas giant Jupiter. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/figcaption><\/figure>
The Trojan asteroids share an orbit with Jupiter, orbiting the Sun either ahead of or behind the gas giant, in regions known as Lagrangian points.<\/p>
Here, the gravitational pull of Jupiter and the Sun equals the centrifugal force felt by small bodies in orbit \u2013 so they can remain in place for billions of years.<\/p>
Most of Jupiter\u2019s Trojans are located at its L4 Lagrangian point, which moves ahead of Jupiter in its orbit, so that\u2019s where Lucy is headed first.<\/p>
$\"A$
A diagram showing the flight path of the Lucy spacecraft as it travels out to the Trojan asteroids, which are located at the two Lagrange points, stabilised by the gravitational tugs of both the Sun and Jupiter. Credit: Southwest Research Institute<\/figcaption><\/figure>
The NASA Lucy mission will make flybys of four different asteroids<\/a> between August 2027 and November 2028 studying their surface composition, geology and interiors.<\/p>
Then Lucy is headed to the L5 point trailing behind Jupiter, where it will arrive five years later to study a binary Trojan asteroid.<\/p>
Little is known about the Trojan asteroids because they are dark, small and far from Earth \u2013 making them very difficult to observe.<\/p>
In fact it was only recently discovered that one of the first asteroids to be encountered by Lucy, Eurybates, has a moon!<\/p>
$\"Work$
Work on the NASA Lucy mission spacecraft continues, late 2020, at Lockheed Martin in Denver, Colorado. Credit: Lockheed Martin<\/figcaption><\/figure>
What can we learn from the NASA Lucy mission?<\/strong><\/h2>
How and where these asteroids formed is an intriguing question, since it provides an important clue to how our entire Solar System formed.<\/p>
One idea is that the Trojans formed at the same time and close to the same location as Jupiter, eventually becoming captured by Jupiter\u2019s enormous gravity.<\/p>
This implies that their composition is similar to Jupiter\u2019s early in its formation (its runaway growth and gas accumulation coming later).<\/p>
The second hypothesis is that the Trojans formed much further out from the Sun \u2013 in the Kuiper Belt<\/a> beyond Neptune \u2013 and were scattered into the inner Solar System when a big reshuffle of the large outer Solar System planets occurred.<\/p>
In this scenario the change in gravity caused by the reshuffle kicked the Trojans inwards, where Jupiter captured them.<\/p>
$\"\"$
Artist’s impression of the view from a Kuiper Belt Object. Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Even though the first scenario seems more plausible it is deemed less likely, as it cannot explain aspects of the Trojan population that the second one can: for example, why some of the Trojans have such large tilts in their orbits.<\/p>
Lucy will help settle this dispute, by enabling the composition of the asteroids to be determined at high spatial resolutions.<\/p>
If the asteroids are shown to have compositions similar to Jupiter\u2019s moons then this implies that they formed close to Jupiter.<\/p>
However, if the asteroid composition is more similar to the Kuiper Belt objects seen by New Horizons<\/a> (Pluto, Charon and Arrokoth), that implies they formed far from the Sun, and a cosmic reshuffle early in our Solar System formation did take place.<\/p>
Either way, the results promise to be fascinating.<\/p>
This article originally appeared in the October 2021 issue of BBC Sky at Night Magazine.<\/strong><\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n
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