On October 16, the American space agency NASA launched a spacecraft into space to study the Trojan asteroids in the orbit of Jupiter.
After launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the asteroid hunter Lucy began a twelve-year journey that should provide a better understanding of the formation of the solar system.
Around 2025, the spacecraft will fly past the first asteroid, named Donald Johanson, which is located between Mars and Jupiter.
Then at the end of this decade, it will fly by five more asteroids and finally in 2033 by two more, each time at a distance of less than 600 miles. Among the asteroids, the largest has a diameter of about 113 km.
About 7.000 known Trojan asteroids orbit the Sun in two groups, one before Jupiter, the other after it. Scientists want to study their composition and precise density, mass and volume.
Lucy was named after the 3,2-million-year-old skeletal remains of a human ancestor that were found in Ethiopia nearly half a century ago.
The mission will cost $12 million over the entire 981 years of asteroid hunting.
Bonus video:
