(ORDO NEWS) — The Lucy spacecraft made a record-breaking close-to-Earth maneuver. This is reported by NASA in the official Twitter.
Lucy was launched on October 16 and is heading for Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids.
Trojan asteroids in astronomy are called objects that occupy the same orbit as the planet itself, but are slightly shifted back and forth along it.
They are at the Lagrange points L4 and L5, which allows them to revolve around the Sun while remaining at the same distance from the planet.
Jupiter’s orbit is far from Earth’s, so the probe uses a gravity assist near Earth to conserve fuel.
Having made a full circle almost in the earth’s orbit in a year, the device in mid-October again approached the planet by 350 kilometers, due to which it significantly increased its speed.
Lucy passed below the orbit of the ISS, the Hubble telescope and most satellites, and for maneuvering at this altitude, atmospheric resistance had to be taken into account, and the device itself was perfectly visible through telescopes.
Now the station will continue its way to the L4 point to study the Trojan asteroids.
They are of interest to scientists because they preserve the ancient material of the solar system in an almost unchanged form and allow them to “look” into the past.
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