In the fall of 2021, NASA launched a billion-dollar mission called Lucy, which is expected to last until 2033. The Lucy probe was supposed to approach the first asteroid to study in 2025, but researchers found the asteroid that Lucy will approach in November. 1, 2023. Lucy is NASA’s first mission to explore the “Trojan” asteroids in Jupiter’s orbit, and will travel more than six billion kilometers.

The Lucy probe “spotted” an asteroid called Dinkinesh on September 3, traveled 54 million kilometers to it in 40 days, and still has more than 20 million kilometers to travel to reach the nearby celestial body on November 1.

The spacecraft will come within 425 km of Dinkinesh, an asteroid about 400 meters in diameter, similar in size to Bennu, from which NASA brought back samples in late September. For comparison, the asteroid Psyche, to which NASA recently sent a mission, has a diameter of 280 km.

The mission was named “Lucy” after the famous fossil discovered in Ethiopia in 1974, which is one of the landmark discoveries in archaeology. The launch of the probe took place in October 2021. At that time, the probe weighed 1,500 km, of which 774 kg was fuel.

Patroclus, Menoetius, and Eurybatus are the three future mission targets, with Patroclus being the largest at 100 km in diameter. In 2025, there will be a meeting with the asteroid Donald Johansson.

A particularly nice part of the Lucy mission is that it can be modified along the way: the probe was originally supposed to explore eight asteroids by 2033, but two could be added, and a slight change in trajectory was made in September to meet the first target and will make another at the end of October, if necessary.

The mission will be able to tell us what happened to the celestial bodies 4.5 billion years ago and give us details about where they formed.

The probe will “collect” information about the color, size, density and geology of the celestial bodies it will approach during the mission of more than 6 billion kilometers.

The probe will approach the selected objects at a distance of 400 – 950 kilometers, depending on their size, and at a speed of about 24,000 km/h.

In astronomy, the adjective Trojan refers to a minor planet or natural satellite that shares the same orbit as a large celestial body, planet, or natural satellite, but does not collide with it because it orbits at one of the two Lagrangian stability points.