NASA’s Lucy spacecraft has “phoned house” after first high-speed asteroid come upon

A spacecraft exploring an asteroid belt effectively “phoned house” to NASA after a high-speed asteroid come upon on Wednesday. The spacecraft, named Lucy, has a number one venture of exploring Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids, a chain of asteroids trapped within the fuel large’s orbit. The brand new high-speed come upon used to be with a small primary belt asteroid that NASA referred to as Dinkinesh, which is “10 to 100 instances smaller” than the Trojan asteroids. The flyby served as an in-flight check of Lucy’s “terminal monitoring device,” NASA mentioned in a information unencumber. 

Hi Lucy! The spacecraft phoned house and is wholesome. Now, the engineers will command Lucy to ship science information from the Dinkinesh come upon to Earth. This information downlink will take a number of days. Thank you for following alongside these days and keep tuned! %.twitter.com/P7XpcM4Ks8— NASA Sun Gadget (@NASASolarSystem) November 1, 2023

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According to knowledge despatched to NASA when Lucy “phoned house,” the spacecraft is regarded as to be “in excellent well being” and has been commanded to begin relaying information bought all through the come upon to researchers. This procedure will take a couple of week, NASA mentioned in a information unencumber detailing the spacecraft’s venture, and can display how Lucy carried out all through the come upon. NASA mentioned that the spacecraft most probably handed the asteroid at about 10,000 miles according to hour. All the way through this time, the spacecraft’s monitoring device used to be meant to “actively track the site” of the small asteroid and transfer autonomously to make the ones observations. 

A graphic illustrating the predicted movement of the NASA Lucy spacecraft and its tool pointing platform all through the come upon with asteroid Dinkinesh.

NASA/Goddard/SwRI

A couple of options at the spacecraft had been intended to be activated all through the come upon, together with a high-resolution digicam that took a chain of pictures each 15 seconds whilst passing shut by way of the asteroid. A colour imager and an infrared spectrometer had been additionally intended to be activated. Lucy additionally is supplied with thermal infrared tools that don’t seem to be made to look at an asteroid as small as Dinkinesh, NASA mentioned, however researchers are thinking about seeing if the gear had been ready to come across the asteroid anyway. 

Whilst Lucy strikes clear of the asteroid, information will nonetheless be accrued, with the spacecraft the usage of a few of its gear to “periodically” apply Dinkinesh for any other 4 days. Lucy introduced into house in 2021 on a 12-year venture to discover 8 asteroids.  The spacecraft is called after the three.2 million-year-old skeletal stays of a human ancestor present in Ethiopia, which were given its identify from the 1967 Beatles track “Lucy within the Sky with Diamonds.” That triggered NASA to release the spacecraft into house with band participants’ lyrics and different luminaries’ phrases of knowledge imprinted on a plaque, the Related Press reported. The spacecraft additionally carried a disc made from lab-grown diamonds for one in every of its science tools.

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Kerry Breen

Kerry Breen is a information editor and reporter for CBS Information. Her reporting specializes in present occasions, breaking information and substance use.

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Author: OpenAI