The Fab Four, Homo Sapiens, and Trojans on a Magical Mystery Tour
A Look at NASA's Mission to Unravel the Mysteries of our Solar System
What do the Beatles, the origins of humanity, and Trojans have to do with one another? Well, the short version is that NASA is launching a spacecraft named Lucy that is going to study Trojan asteroids, which is what the small celestial bodies that orbit the planets and moons in our solar system are called. This is the first time that a space mission is set to travel to eight different destinations.
Lucy got its name from the famous human ancestor that was found in Ethiopia in 1974. Her skeleton has provided us with valuable insights into human evolution. During the party thrown on the day of discovery, the Beatles’ song ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ was apparently playing over and over again. And because there ain’t no party like a paleoanthropologist party, the following morning the decision had been made to name the hominid (the family of primates that humans belong to, as well as great apes) skeleton ‘Lucy’, although no one knew how exactly this had come to pass.
Fast forward 47 years. Somewhere in the coming weeks, the Lucy spacecraft is set to be launched into space, where it will begin its historic eight-asteroid relay. If all goes well, it will allow us to study the composition of these asteroids, so that we can learn more about the early history of our solar system. Scientists hope that Lucy will provide us with insights about the origins of planets and the formation of the solar system in its current form. This is why they have decided to name the hardy explorer after the hominid that was such a monumental discovery 47 years ago.
The two yellowish ‘arms’ that can be seen in the above video are giant solar panels. Lucy will need those 8.8-by-19.8-metre panels to generate energy, as it travels up to 853 million km away from the sun. It is equipped with many scientific instruments, among which is a 6.7-carat diamond.
After two flybys past Earth, which give Lucy enough speed to reach the Kuiper belt, it will be time to say farewell. After a twelve-year journey wherein the spacecraft visits our small cosmic neighbours, it will keep flying between the Trojans for a million years. So in a remarkably poetic way, our Lucy will remain forever in the sky with her diamonds.