NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured this image (which has been cropped) of the Earth on Oct 15, 2022, as … [+]
In the wake of NASA spacecraft Lucy’s super-close flyby of Earth last weekend a batch of incredible images have been sent back from the asteroid-bound vehicle.
The $450 million “Discovery”-class spacecraft skimmed Earth’s atmosphere just 220 miles/350 kilometers above the surface at 7:04 a.m. EDT on Sunday, October 16, 2022.
Lucy is bound for a swarm of Trojan asteroids. Often called “Jupiter’s children,” Trojan asteroids orbit the Sun in two swarms, ahead of Jupiter and one trailing in its wake. They’re considered to be primeval leftovers—fossils—from the formation and evolution of the planets and the Solar System.
On October 13, 2022, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured this image of the Earth and the Moon from a … [+]
On the first of three Earth flybys to gain orbital energy for its long 12-year missions, last weekend Lucy came close to Earth from the direction of the Sun. It thus allowed the spacecraft to take images of a “full” Earth, as well as of the Moon.
The images will be used to calibrate the spacecraft’s cameras and instruments, though it’s the images of the Mon that are of most interest to the mission scientists.
Lucy will return for a second Earth flyby in two years before it can cross the main asteroid belt and visit asteroid Donaldjohanson and four Trojan asteroids: Eurybates and its satellite Queta, Polymele and its yet unnamed satellite Leucus, then Orus. A third gravity Earth flyby in 2030 will route Lucy to Patroclus-Menoetius, a binary asteroid pair behind the Trojan asteroids.
The Lucy spacecraft, imaged from Italy on Oct. 16, 2022 by Gianluca Masi/Virtual Telescope Project, … [+]
The asteroid that the NASA’s spacecraft will visit in the Asteroid Belt has been named (52246) Donaldjohanson for Donald Johanson, who in 1974 in Ethiopia discovered a 3.2 million-year-old fossilized human ancestor. He called it Lucy after playing a Beatles cassette that night at camp including the song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”
NASA’s spacecraft is named after that fossil—and that region can be seen in its new images. Look in the upper left of the image at the top of this article and you’ll see Hadar in Ethiopia where Lucy was found. The image was taken with Lucy’s Terminal Tracking Camera (T2CAM) system.
Lucy will orbit the Sun six times on its mission, but ultimately it will travel between the Trojan asteroids and the orbit of the Earth for millions of years. Consequently, Lucy carries a time-capsule containing messages for our descendants. It’s hoped that humans of the future will retrieve Lucy and discover that it’s an artifact of the days when humanity took its first steps to explore the Solar System.
Its next Earth flyby is in late 2024.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
