NASA’s Lucy spacecraft passes the primary of 10 asteroids on a protracted journey to Jupiter

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s Lucy spacecraft on Wednesday encountered the primary of 10 asteroids on its lengthy journey to Jupiter.

The spacecraft swooped Wednesday by the pint-sized Dinkenish, about 300 million miles (480 million kilometers) away in the principle asteroid belt past Mars. It was a “quick hey,” in keeping with NASA, because the spacecraft approached at 10,000 mph (16,000 km/h).

Lucy arrived inside 270 miles (435 kilometers) of Dinkenish, testing its devices in a take a look at run searching for which bigger, extra enticing asteroids awaited. Dinkenish is just half a mile (1 kilometer) throughout, and could be very doubtless the smallest house rock on Lucy’s tour.

Lucy’s predominant targets are so-called Trojans, swarms of unexplored asteroids close to Jupiter which might be time capsules from the daybreak of the photo voltaic system. The spacecraft will swing in entrance of eight Trojans believed to be 10 to 100 instances bigger than Dinkenish. It’s scheduled to cross by the final two asteroids in 2033.

NASA launched Lucy on its billion-dollar mission two years in the past. The spacecraft is known as after 3.2 million-year-old skeletal stays of a human ancestor present in Ethiopia within the Seventies. Lucy will then swing throughout an asteroid named after one in every of Lucy’s fossil discoverers: Donald Johansson.

One of many two photo voltaic wings on the spacecraft stays disassembled. Flight controllers have given up attempting to stabilize it, however it’s believed to be steady sufficient for the complete mission.

Wednesday’s flyby culminates what NASA calls “asteroid autumn.” NASA introduced again its first samples of asteroid particles in September. Then in October, it launched a spacecraft to a uncommon, metal-rich asteroid known as Psyche.

Not like these missions, Lucy won’t cease at any asteroids or acquire any samples.

It should take a minimum of every week for the spacecraft to transmit all the photographs and information from the flyby.

Dinkenish has up to now been simply “an unresolved blot on the most effective telescopes,” Hal Levison, chief scientist on the Southwest Analysis Institute, mentioned in a press release.

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