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The representation of the artist of Nasas Lucy spaceship through the asteroid Donaldjohanson. | Credit: NASA/GSFC
Easter Sunday will certainly not be a day off for astronomy community.
All eyes will be directed to NASA’s asteroid teaching Lucy Spacecraft, which has a close encounter on April 20, 2025 at 1:51 p.m. Edt (1751 GMT).
Lucy was introduced in 2021 and is on a 12-year journey into the orbit of JupiterIn the meantime, the probe Flybys will carry out eight Trojan asteroids In search of the origins of the origins of the Solar systemIn search of elements that could trigger life. But before Lucy arrives there, the spaceship will have time for a few clothes samples.
The first was a flyby of the asteroid Dinkinesh On November 1, 2023. In the coming Sunday Lucy will be on her second destination, the asteroid Donaldjohanson. Lucy will come past the asteroid Test its scientific instruments at a distance of around 1,000 kilometers.
These tools include L’Ralph, a color camera and an infrared range of screen. L’Llori, the high-resolution Lucy Long-Range reconnaissance pictures; and l’Et, the far-infrarotic lucy thermisMission spectrometer.
“We will watch [Donaldjohanson] As if it were one of the Trojan asteroids because we wanted to have a complete exercise run ” Video interview. The goal, as he shares, is to find out the composition of the asteroid.
Visualizations of various asteroids that compare their size. Donaldjohanson is considerably larger than Bennu, Ryugu and Dinkinesh. | Credit: SWRI/ESA/Osiris/NASA/Goddard/Johns Hopkins APL/Noirlab/University of Arizona/Jaxa/University of Tokyo & employees
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Lucy and Donaldjohanson are much more connected than with their upcoming physical proximity. The NASA mission was named after the three million year old fossil Australopithecine skeleton, which was discovered in Ethiopia in 1974 and contributed to our understanding of human evolution. And who discovered these bones? The paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson, founder of the Institute for Human origin of the Arizona State University.
Johanson spoke to Christensen during the video interview to discuss the Lucy mission, and Christensen had to ask a very important question. If, as scientists predict, a secondary asteroid is discovered during the Donaldjohanson Flyby – asteroid trips often in pairs – what would Johanson want to call it?
“Oh, I have to think real,” said Johanson.
