Asteroid Probe 'Lucy' Embarks on 12-Year Journey... Jupiter Exploration Scheduled for 2027

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Junhyung Lee] NASA's asteroid probe 'Lucy' embarked on a 12-year journey to explore eight asteroids on the 16th.

NASA announced that Lucy was launched into space aboard an Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, at around 6:34 p.m. local time.

Lucy will perform its first mission in April 2025 by closely passing an asteroid located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. From August 2027, it will become the first to explore seven Trojan asteroids orbiting Jupiter.

During its flight toward the target asteroids, Lucy will approach Earth three times to perform gravity assist maneuvers, using Earth's gravity to accelerate.

If Lucy succeeds in its mission over the 6.3 billion km journey, it will become the first spacecraft to return near Earth from beyond the solar system. Approximately $981 million (about 1.161 trillion KRW) has been invested in this exploration.

The Trojan asteroids Lucy will explore are believed to be leftover material from the formation of outer planets such as Jupiter and Saturn. They are thought to have remained almost unchanged in their primordial state for about 4.5 billion years. There are about 10,000 Trojan asteroids trapped at the Lagrange points (L4, L5), where the gravitational forces of the Sun and Jupiter balance out, orbiting the Sun ahead of and behind Jupiter.

Lucy will approach these asteroids up to about 400 km away, flying at speeds of 5 to 9 km/s. Using remote sensing instruments, it will collect data on the asteroids' composition, mass, density, and size. Although Lucy's mission duration is 12 years, the actual time spent exploring the asteroids is reported to be about 24 hours.

Lucy obtains power by deploying disk-shaped solar panels with a diameter of 7 meters on both sides of its body. This is the first time solar panels have been applied to a spacecraft entering Jupiter's orbit, about 800 million km from the Sun.

The probe's name, Lucy, is derived from the nickname of the 3.2 million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis fossil that revolutionized human evolutionary studies. The name originated from the Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," which was popular when the fossil was discovered in Ethiopia, Africa, in 1974. The name reflects the hope that Lucy will make an important contribution to understanding the origin and evolution of planets in the solar system.

Lucy also carries a disk made of diamond material created in a laboratory. According to the Associated Press, Ringo Starr, a member of the Beatles, expressed joy via a prerecorded video, saying that John Lennon, who wrote "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," would have loved it. He said, "Lucy going back to the sky with diamonds again would make John Lennon very happy," and added, "If Lucy meets someone up there, please convey peace and love."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.