NASA’s Lucy mission to probe Jupiter’s mysterious Trojan asteroids

Washington (AFP) – NASA is poised to send its first spacecraft to study Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids to glean new insights into the solar system’s formation 4.5 billion years ago, the space agency said Tuesday. The probe, called Lucy after an ancient fossil that provided insights into the evolution of human species, will launch on October 16 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Its mission is to investigate the group of rocky bodies circling the Sun in two swarms, one preceding Jupiter in its orbital path and the other trailing behind it.   After receiving boosts from Earth’s grav…

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