The NASA spacecraft on Sunday day will create a thorough approach to an asteroid in the main belt, in the second of several asteroid flies planned for its 12-year mission to study the remnants of the early solar system. Lucy’s spacecraft will be 596 miles (960 km) from the Asteroid Donaljohanson, named after the Paleoanthropologist, who discovered Lucy Gominin. NASALucy will use three tools to capture detailed observations when the object approaches, rotating with an asteroid for several hours to get a complete picture. He will stop tracking immediately before the near asteroid, when he will have to protect his instruments from the position of the Sun in order to prevent their damage.
The spacecraft had previously visited a small asteroid called Dinkinesh in 2023, and its observations showed that Asteroid is orbit as is known as a contact binary fileor a peanut -shaped double moon, “made from two smaller objects relating to each other”, NASA Explained at that time. After Donalgonson, Lucy will go to his main goals, a handful of “Trojan” asteroids rotating in the sun, on the same path as Jupiter. It is expected that it will reach the first of these objects in 2027.
“Each asteroid has another story, and these stories are united to draw the history of our solar system,” said Tom Statler, a scientist of the Lucy Mission Program, in the press release. “The fact that every new asteroid that we visit knocks down our socks means that we are just beginning to understand the depth and wealth of this story. Telescopic observations are hinting that Donaljohanson will have an interesting story, and I fully expect that he will be surprised again. ”