Lucy Mission Launches for Trojan Asteroids

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

 
Video imagery:

·       Lucy spacecraft launch at Cape Canaveral: NASA/Bill Ingalls

·       Lucy trajectory: SWRI/NASA/Goddard

·       Asteroids animation: NASA's Conceptual Image Lab
 

Writer: Leah Ramsay

Designer: Leah Hustak, Joseph Olmsted

Science review: Dr. Chris Britt

Education review: Jim Manning

Music from Music for Non-Profits

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A grid of photographs of celestial bodies moves up. A white line moves down and another across.

 

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Text, News from the universe. Text above an image of a planet.

 

October 21, 2021. Lucy mission launches for Trojan asteroids. An arc of light from the launch site into the sky.

 

Text, NASA's first mission to Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, Lucy, has launched from Cape Canaveral station in Florida. The arc of light continues in front of clouds.

 

Text, Over 12 years, Lucy will fly by one main-belt asteroid and seven Trojan asteroids, which orbit in front of and behind Jupiter. A model of the orbits of Earth, Jupiter and Lucy. Lucy's trajectory intersects with the Trojan asteroids.

 

Text, Evidence indicates the Trojan asteroids are like solar system fossils, left over from the formation of giant planets. A counter at the bottom of the screen increases quickly from Nov. 26 2021 to Feb 14 2032.

 

Text, The asteroids will reveal new information about the early days and evolution of the Solar System, including Earth. Seven asteroids rotate.

 

Text, The Lucy mission is named for the fossilized skeleton of one of humanity's earliest known hominid ancestors. The asteroids continue to rotate, their names below.

 

Text, This news was brought to you in part by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

 

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