{"id":128627,"date":"2021-10-06T16:22:28","date_gmt":"2021-10-06T23:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/10\/nasas-lucy-mission-to-explore-the-jupiter-trojan-asteroids-its-almost-like-were-traveling-back-in-time"},"modified":"2021-10-06T16:22:28","modified_gmt":"2021-10-06T23:22:28","slug":"nasas-lucy-mission-to-explore-the-jupiter-trojan-asteroids-its-almost-like-were-traveling-back-in-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/10\/nasas-lucy-mission-to-explore-the-jupiter-trojan-asteroids-its-almost-like-were-traveling-back-in-time","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Lucy Mission To Explore the Jupiter Trojan Asteroids \u2014 \u201cIt\u2019s Almost Like We\u2019re Traveling Back in Time\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/nasas-lucy-mission-to-explore-the-jupiter-trojan-asteroids-its-almost-like-were-traveling-back-in-time.gif\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Called \u201cTrojans\u201d after characters from Greek mythology, most of Lucy\u2019s target asteroids are left over from the formation of the solar system. These Trojans circle the Sun in two swarms: one that precedes and one that follows Jupiter in its orbit of the Sun. Lucy will be the first spacecraft to visit the Trojans, and the first to examine so many independent solar system targets, each in its own orbit of the Sun.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Lucy gets its name from the fossilized human ancestor, called \u201cLucy\u201d by her discoverers, whose skeleton provided unique insight into human evolution. Likewise, the Lucy mission will revolutionize our knowledge of planetary origins and the formation of the solar system.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Studying Jupiter\u2019s Trojan asteroids up close would help scientists hone their theories on how our solar system\u2019s planets formed 4.5 billion years ago and why they ended up in their current configuration. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like we\u2019re traveling back in time,\u201d said aerospace engineer Jacob Englander, who helped design Lucy\u2019s trajectory while working at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Called \u201cTrojans\u201d after characters from Greek mythology, most of Lucy\u2019s target asteroids are left over from the formation of the solar system. These Trojans circle the Sun in two swarms: one that precedes and one that follows Jupiter in its orbit of the Sun. Lucy will be the first spacecraft to visit the Trojans, and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[385,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evolution","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128627\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}