Jenny Asemota
That’s why the Lucy mission, named after the ancient remains of a famous fossilized human skeleton, aims to visit these asteroids, which likely are the smaller building blocks of our diverse planets, including Earth.
“If we want to understand ourselves, we have to understand these small bodies,” Hal Levison, a planetary scientist who leads the unprecedented mission to investigate the Trojans, told Mashable. “This is the first reconnaissance of the Trojan swarms.”
And though the Lucy spacecraft is still over 330 million miles from these asteroids, it still captured its first footage of the Trojans, which you can see just below amid a background of stars.
SEE ALSOIf a scary asteroid will actually strike Earth, here’s how you’ll knowTweet may have been deleted(opens in a new tab)(Opens in a new tab)
NASA has blasted a spacecraft, traveling at speeds up to 92,000 mph, to the most mysterious asteroids in our solar system.
Called the Trojan asteroids(Opens in a new tab), they are trapped in two swarms one in front and one behind Jupiter.
Crucially, astronomers say these curious space rocks are preserved relics of our early solar system.
Keypoints
- The mission to the mysterious asteroids
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