‘Coolest darn mission’: NASA asteroid hunter Lucy rockets into sky with diamonds – National

A NASA spacecraft named Lucy rocketed into the sky with diamonds Saturday morning on a 12-year quest to discover eight asteroids.

Seven of the mysterious area rocks are amongst swarms of asteroids sharing Jupiter’s orbit, considered the pristine leftovers of planetary formation.

An Atlas V rocket blasted off earlier than daybreak, sending Lucy on a roundabout orbital journey spanning almost 4 billion miles (6.3 billion kilometers). “I’m simply elated,” NASA’s affiliate administrator, Robert Cabana, mentioned following liftoff. “That is the best darn mission.”

Lucy is called after the three.2 million-year-old skeletal stays of a human ancestor discovered ispan Ethiopia almost a half-century in the past. That discovery obtained its identify from the 1967 Beatles music “Lucy within the Sky with Diamonds,” prompting NASA to ship the spacecraft hovering with band members’ lyrics and different luminaries’ phrases of knowledge imprinted on a plaque. The spacecraft additionally carried a disc made from lab-grown diamonds for one among its science devices.

In a prerecorded video for NASA, Beatles drummer Ringo Starr paid tribute to his late colleague John Lennon, credited for writing the music that impressed all this.

“Lucy goes again within the sky with diamonds. Johnny will love that,” Starr mentioned. “Anyway, In case you meet anybody up there, Lucy, give them peace and love from me.”

The paleoanthropologist behind the fossil Lucy discovery, Donald Johanson, mentioned he was stuffed with marvel about this “intersection of our previous, our current and our future.”

“{That a} human ancestor who lived so way back stimulated a mission which guarantees so as to add precious details about the formation of our photo voltaic system is extremely thrilling,” mentioned Johanson, of Arizona State College, who traveled to Cape Canaveral for the launch.

Lucy’s $981 million mission is the primary to intention for Jupiter’s so-called Trojan entourage: 1000’s _ if not thousands and thousands _ of asteroids that share the gasoline big’s expansive orbit across the solar. Among the Trojan asteroids precede Jupiter in its orbit, whereas others path it.

Regardless of their orbits, the Trojans are removed from the planet and largely scattered removed from one another. So there’s primarily zero likelihood of Lucy getting clobbered by one because it swoops previous its targets, mentioned Southwest Analysis Institute’s Hal Levison, the mission’s principal scientist.

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Lucy will swoop previous Earth subsequent October and once more in 2024 to get sufficient gravitational oomph to make all of it the best way out to Jupiter’s orbit. On the best way there, the spacecraft will zip previous asteroid Donaldjohanson between Mars and Jupiter. The aptly named rock will function a 2025 warm-up act for the science devices.

Drawing energy from two big round photo voltaic wings, Lucy will chase down 5 asteroids within the main pack of Trojans within the late 2020s. The spacecraft will then swoop again towards Earth for one more gravity help in 2030 that may swing it again out to the trailing Trojan cluster, the place it’ll zip previous the ultimate two targets in 2033.

It’s an advanced, circuitous path that had NASA’s science mission chief, Thomas Zurbuchen, shaking his head at first. “You’ve obtained to be kidding. That is attainable?” he recalled asking.

Lucy will cross inside 600 miles (965 kilometers) of every goal; the largest one is about 70 miles (113 kilometers) throughout.

“Are there mountains? Valleys? Pits? Mesas? Who is aware of? I’m certain we’re going to be stunned,” mentioned Johns Hopkins College’s Hal Weaver, who’s answerable for Lucy’s black-and-white digital camera. “However we are able to hardly wait to see what … photos will reveal about these fossils from the formation of the photo voltaic system.”

NASA plans to launch one other mission subsequent month to check whether or not people may be capable to alter an asteroid’s orbit _ apply in case Earth ever has a killer rock headed this fashion.