CAPE CANAVERAL. 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 Trojan asteroids of Jupiter, in 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 was in turn named after the Beatles’ 1967 song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” The paleoanthropologist behind the discovery of Lucy’s fossil, Donald Johanson, said he was amazed at this “intersection between our past, our present and our future”. “That an ancestor who lived so long ago spurred a mission that promises to add valuable information about the formation of our solar system is incredibly exciting,” said Johanson, of Arizona State University, who traveled to Cape Canaveral for the launch.
In a pre-recorded message for NASA, Ringo Starr of the Beatles paid tribute to John Lennon, who wrote the song that inspired all of this: “Lucy is returning to heaven with diamonds. Johnny would like it, ”he said. And again: «Anyway, Lucy, if you meet someone up there, tell them peace and love for me». Lucy’s $ 981 million mission is the first to go to Jupiter’s so-called Trojan asteroids – thousands, if not millions, of asteroids that share the gas giant’s wide orbit around the sun. Despite their orbits, Trojan asteroids are located far from Jupiter and mostly far from each other. The chance of Lucy getting hit as she nears her targets is basically zero, said Hal Levison of the Southwest Research Institute, principal scientist on the mission. cba