[slate]
[slate] The Trojan asteroids which
are located in these Goldie-Locks zones of
gravity-stable orbits, in between the sun
and Jupiter are really left-over fossils
from the formation of the solar system.
And these fossils are around 4 billion years old. And when
the solar system was forming they were brought into these locations and
the Trojan asteroids which have been there since the formation
of the solar system, are these last unexplored
remnants from the cosmic neighborhood
creation. And we’re extremely excited to go and visit them because of our
total lack of understanding of exactly what is out there. And so it’s going to be
extremely exciting when the Lucy spacecraft explores them.
[slate]
A comet is really that dirty snowball. It's
kind of ice and rock all mixed together
moving throughout the solar system. Really moving around and as it gets closer
to the sun and heats up it boils off and that’s when you get those really beautiful
tails that come off of the comets themselves.
And as they move through the solar system they get hot and they get cold
and they keep going. An asteroid really is just a rock.
And it’s a mostly silicas, metals and things like that.
Although it might seem relatively boring compared to a comet,
these asteroids can be fossils that just hold
all kinds of stories of where they came from, how they were formed
and what materials are actually in these different
portions of the solar system.
[slate]
These asteroids represent the fragments leftover from the
formation of the outer planets. It’s going to give us those key insights
into how the outer planets formed at the very beginning of our solar system.
What we really want to find out is what building blocks or materials
are in these particular asteroids because that will tell us
what materials, building blocks, the things that were available to create
those outer planets. And that’s just going to vastly increase our knowledge
and understanding of how our outer planets were formed and consequently
how we as a cosmic and solar system neighborhood really came
to be into our own.
[slate]
These Trojan asteroids, which are out in the outskirts of the
solar system itself, are going to give us different clues.
These different clues really will tell us about the formation of our outer planets.
So from Earth, we can see really grainy pictures with our very
large telescopes and Earth observation equipment.
And so when we’re going to get up close and personal, multiple times with multiple
Trojan asteroids with our Lucy spacecraft,
we’re going to gain some key insights as to what materials are in these Trojan
asteroids. What building blocks did we have available to us as a solar system
when we formed our outer planets. And it’s going to fully develop
our understanding of how our solar system was created.
[slate]
[slate] What
I’m most excited about for the Lucy mission, having worked on the Lucy
mission since the very beginning. Being the one that
designed the first part, released that first drawing. I worked on the very first
pieces that hit the production floor, and I was there
for the last pieces of tape on the spacecraft as we encapsulated it and sent it out
on its rocket. I’m most excited for when we launch
and our spacecraft has fully deployed solar arrays and it’s nominally
healthy, out in space, ready to start its journey.
[slate]
I cannot wait for those gorgeous images that our
instruments are going to take and bring back to Earth. What that’s going to tell me
and the world is how gorgeous these objects
are. What secrets they have to hold and it’s going start us
unlocking these mysteries of the solar system that are out there. I
can’t wait and words can’t describe just how excited I am to share with everyone
these images when they first come back.
[slate]
You can follow along on the NASA social media as we
bring back exciting science and update everyone about how the mission is going,
If you are a undergraduate college student you can join
the L’Space Academy and really understand how these missions go from
paper to reality. Understands requirements writing and really
get the details of how these missions fly to the stars.
[slate]
Go
Atlas, Go Centaur, Go Lucy - the first mission to the Trojan
asteroids.