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NASA’s Lucy probe was launched from its base in Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard an Atlas V rocket that will send it to explore eight of Jupiter’s asteroids over a 12-year journey. Lucy will travel 6.4 million kilometers before reaching her eighth goal, which is the final one, in 2033.
The probe is named after the 3.2 million-year-old human skeleton remains found in Ethiopia about a century ago. That discovery in turn took its name from the 1967 Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
Donald Johanson, the paleo anthropologist who discovered the fossil in the 1960s, said he was amazed at this “intersection between our past, our present and our future”. Additionally, Johanson traveled to Cape Canaveral to witness the launch.