The United States Space Agency (Nasa) launched the ‘Lucy’ probe this Saturday to study the Trojan asteroids that share orbit with the planet Jupiter.
“’Lucy’ is in heaven! Mission ‘Lucy’ has taken off at 5.34 am from the east coast ”, 11.34 am peninsular Spanish time, reported NASA through its Twitter account.
‘Lucy’ has departed for space aboard an Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base, Florida. It will be a 12-year mission to visit eight different asteroids.
“Like its namesake ‘Lucy’, the fossil remains of the human ancestor that shed light on evolution, this probe will revolutionize our understanding of planetary origins and the formation of the Solar system,” said NASA.
This is the first mission to Trojan asteroids, which could contain “time capsules on the birth of our Solar system more than 4,000 million years ago.”
These two groups of asteroids would be the remains of the primordial matter that formed the outer planets that were in gravitational balance.