NASA’s Lucy mission executed the primary of three deliberate slingshot maneuvers round Earth this month in preparation to review Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids, however the spacecraft made positive to take some beautiful photographs of Earth and the moon earlier than retreating into deep space.
The photographs, taken on Oct. 13 and Oct. 15 as Lucy began its approach toward Earth for a gravity-assisted pace enhance on Oct. 16, are extra useful than a few easy snapshots. The photographs had been taken to assist calibrate Lucy‘s Terminal Monitoring Digital camera (T2CAM) system, which options two similar cameras that the spacecraft will use to pinpoint and observe goal asteroids because it zips previous at excessive speeds.
The primary picture, taken on Oct. 13, highlights the unbelievable distance between the Earth and the moon. On the time, the 2 our bodies sitting at reverse edges of the body had been about 890,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) away from Lucy, in response to a NASA statement. Mission personnel additionally supposed to have the spacecraft {photograph} the moon on its manner again into deep space.
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The second picture, snapped two days later, is a close-up shot of the Earth as Lucy approached, taken at a distance of roughly 380,000 miles (620,000 km). Within the picture, Hadar, Ethiopia, is simply seen on the left-most fringe of the planet, giving Lucy (and us) a cosmic-eye glimpse of the spot the place the 3.2-million-year-old human ancestor fossil for which the mission is named was found.
Lucy will likely be making three flybys of Earth in total, utilizing Earth’s gravity on its method to hurry itself up so it will possibly begin its years-long voyage to Jupiter‘s Trojan asteroids. In the course of the first flyby, Lucy got here inside simply 220 miles (350 km) of the Earth’s floor — a decrease altitude than the International Space Station and lots of satellites and shut sufficient for sharp-eyed skywatchers on the bottom under to identify it.
Lucy would be the first spacecraft to go to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids, so named as a result of they orbit the sun on the identical distance as Jupiter, each in entrance of the planet and behind it. They occupy two of the 5 Lagrange points of Jupiter, the one places the place a steady orbit so near the gas giant is feasible.
Throughout its 12-year mission, Lucy is ready to fly by 9 asteroids, together with one in the primary asteroid belt, to review their composition, density and variety. Whereas that is a formidable variety of asteroids to review in a single go, there are as many as 12,000 Trojan asteroids orbiting with Jupiter, in response to the Worldwide Astronomical Union. Scientists consider these rocks are 4-billion-year-old “fossils” left over from the formation of the solar system.
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