ORLANDO, Fla. — A NASA spacecraft named Lucy is on its way to a part of space that’s never been explored after being rocketed into the sky from Cape Canaveral before Saturday’s sunrise.
The probe launched on time at 5:34 a.m. aboard United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket, beginning a 4-billion-mile journey to explore the Trojans, two clusters of asteroids that lead and trail Jupiter, stuck in its orbit around the sun. The mission will span 12 years, during which Lucy will visit seven Trojan asteroids, hoping to find clues to the solar system’s formation.
Although the asteroids are fixed in Jupiter’s orbit, scientists don’t believe they’ve always been there, explained Hal Weaver, a principal investigator from Johns Hopkins University who worked on the $981 million mission.
