Lucy Mission Trajectory with Jupiter Trojans and Main Belt Asteroids
This visualization shows the trajectory of NASA’s Lucy spacecraft as it travels to the Jupiter L4 Lagrange point. Trojan asteroids are represented by light orange dots, while main belt asteroids are shown as white dots.
This visualization tracks NASA’s Lucy spacecraft from its October 2021 launch to its arrival at the L4 Trojan asteroids. Having traveled over 2.2 billion miles, Lucy is the first spacecraft to reach the L4 Lagrange point, a stable region in space where thousands of primitive asteroids share Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. Scientists expect that studying these ancient bodies up close, starting with the asteroid Eurybates in August 2027, will help refine theories on how our solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago.
This visualization shows the trajectory of NASA’s Lucy spacecraft as it travels to the Jupiter L4 Lagrange point. Trojan asteroids are represented by light orange dots, while main belt asteroids are shown as white dots. This version has no asteroid labels.
Credits
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Data visualizer
- Kel Elkins (Science and Technology Corporation)
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Scientists
- Katherine Kretke (SwRI)
- Simone Marchi (SwRI)
- John Spencer (Southwest Research Institute)
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Science writer
- Lonnie Shekhtman (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
Missions
This page is related to the following missions:Release date
This page was originally published on Tuesday, October 27, 2026.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, October 28, 2026 at 10:19 AM EDT.