NASA Launches First Explorer to Jupiter's Trojan Asteroids

NASA launched an innovative asteroid explorer to Trojan asteroids orbiting the sun in Jupiter’s path, in what is considered to be the first mission to study the primordial material that formed our solar system.

The probe, named Lucy, blasted off atop the Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Saturday morning to begin a 12-year-long mission that will see it zip past eight asteroids that either precede or trail Jupiter.

“Lucy in the sky! Our Lucy Mission lifted off at 5:34 a.m. ET [GMT-4],” the US space agency tweeted.

The solar-powered craft will use thrusters to navigate, circling back to Earth three times for gravity assists, making it the first-ever spacecraft to return from the outer solar system.

This mission is named after a fossilized female human ancestor discovered by American anthropologist Donald Johanson in Ethiopia in 1974. That fossil, in turn, got its name from a Beatles’ song bearing the title “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”