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Lucy (spacecraft)
''Lucy'' is a NASA space probe on a twelve-year journey to eight different asteroids, visiting a main belt asteroid as well as seven Jupiter trojans, asteroids which share Jupiter's orbit around the Sun, orbiting either ahead of or behind the planet. All target encounters will be flyby encounters. The Lucy spacecraft is the centerpiece of a US$981 million mission. On 4 January 2017, Lucy was chosen, along with the ''Psyche'' mission, as NASA's Discovery Program missions 13 and 14 respectively. The mission is named after the Lucy hominin fossils, because study of the trojans could reveal the "fossils of planet formation": materials that clumped together in the early history of the Solar System to form planets and other bodies. The hominid was named after the 1967 Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". The spacecraft carries a disc made of lab-grown diamonds for its L'TES instrument. Overview ''Lucy'' was launched from Cape Canaveral SLC-41 on 16 October 2021, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southwest Research Institute
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, is an independent and nonprofit applied research and development (R&D) organization. Founded in 1947 by oil businessman Tom Slick, it provides contract research and development services to government and industrial clients. Description The institute consists of eleven technical divisions, The Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, also operates on the SwRI grounds. More than 4,000 projects are active at the institute at any given time. These projects are funded between the government and commercial sectors. At the close of fiscal year 2021, the staff numbered approximately 3,000 employees and research volume was nearly $726 million. The institute provided more than $8 million to fund research through its internally sponsored R&D program. A partial listing of research areas includes space science ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
617 Patroclus
617 Patroclus ( ) is a large binary Jupiter trojan asteroid. It is a dark D-type asteroid and a slow rotator, due to the 103-hour orbital period of its two components. It is one of five Jovian asteroids targeted by the ''Lucy'' space probe, and is scheduled for a flyby in 2033. Patroclus was discovered on 17 October, 1906, by astronomer August Kopff at the Heidelberg Observatory in Germany, and was named after Patroclus in Greek mythology. It was the second trojan to be discovered and the only member of the Trojan camp named after a Greek figure, as the convention of naming one 'camp' after Greek figures of the Trojan War and the other after Trojan figures had not yet been established. Patroclus was long thought to be one of the largest Jupiter trojans, with a diameter on the order of 150 km. However, in 2001 it was discovered to be a binary asteroid of two similarly sized objects. The name ''Patroclus'' is now assigned to the larger component, some 110–115 km in diam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jupiter Trojan
The Jupiter trojans, commonly called trojan asteroids or simply trojans, are a large group of asteroids that share the planet Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. Relative to Jupiter, each trojan librates around one of Jupiter's stable Lagrange points: either ', existing 60° ahead of the planet in its orbit, or ', 60° behind. Jupiter trojans are distributed in two elongated, curved regions around these Lagrangian points with an average semi-major axis of about 5.2 AU. The first Jupiter trojan discovered, 588 Achilles, was spotted in 1906 by German astronomer Max Wolf. More than 9,800 Jupiter trojans have been found . By convention, they are each named from Greek mythology after a figure of the Trojan War, hence the name "trojan". The total number of Jupiter trojans larger than 1 km in diameter is believed to be about , approximately equal to the number of asteroids larger than 1 km in the asteroid belt. Like main-belt asteroids, Jupiter trojans form families. , man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
15094 Polymele
15094 Polymele is a primitive Jupiter trojan from the Greek camp, approximately in diameter. It is a target of the ''Lucy'' mission with a close flyby planned to occur in September 2027. It was discovered on 17 November 1999, by astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey at Mount Lemmon Observatory, Arizona, in the United States. The P-type asteroid has a rotation period of 5.9 hours and highly elongated shape. It was named after Polymele from Greek mythology, the wife of Menoetius and the mother of Patroclus. In 2022, it was reported to have a companion asteroid approximately in diameter. Orbit and classification Polymele is a Jupiter trojan asteroid orbiting in the leading Greek camp at Jupiter's Lagrangian point, 60 ° ahead of the Gas Giant's orbit ''(see Trojans in astronomy)''. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 4.7–5.7 AU once every 11 years and 9 months (4,289 days; semi-major axis of 5.17 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.09 and an inclination of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
3548 Eurybates
3548 Eurybates ( ) is a carbonaceous Jupiter trojan from the Greek camp and the parent body of the Eurybates family, approximately in diameter. It is a target to be visited by the ''Lucy'' mission in August 2027. Discovered during the second Palomar–Leiden Trojan survey in 1973, it was later named after Eurybates from Greek mythology. The C/P-type asteroid belongs to the 60 largest Jupiter trojans and has a rotation period of 8.7 hours. ''Eurybates'' has one known satellite, named ''Queta'', that was discovered in images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in September 2018. Discovery ''Eurybates'' was discovered on 19 September 1973, by Dutch astronomers Ingrid and Cornelis van Houten at Leiden, on photographic plates taken by Tom Gehrels at the Palomar Observatory in California, United States. In 1951, it was first observed as ' at the Goethe Link Observatory, extending the asteroid's observation arc by 22 years prior to its official discovery observation at Palo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Camp
This is a list of Jupiter trojans that lie in the Greek camp, an elongated curved region around the leading Lagrangian point (), 60 ° ahead of Jupiter in its orbit. All the asteroids at Jupiter's point have names corresponding to participants on the Greek side of the Trojan War, except for 624 Hektor, which was named before this naming convention was instituted. Correspondingly, 617 Patroclus is a Greek-named asteroid at the "Trojan" () Lagrangian point. In 2018, at its 30th General Assembly in Vienna, the International Astronomical Union amended this naming convention, allowing for Jupiter trojans with '' H'' larger than 12 (that is, a mean diameter smaller than approximately 22 kilometers, for an assumed albedo of 0.057) to be named after Olympic athletes, as the number of known Jupiter trojans, currently more than 10,000, far exceeds the number of available names of heroes from the Trojan War in Greek mythology. Trojans in the Greek and Trojan camp are discovered mainly in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
52246 Donaldjohanson
52246 Donaldjohanson, provisional designation , is a carbonaceous Erigonian asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 2 March 1981, by American astronomer Schelte Bus at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. The C-type asteroid is a target of the ''Lucy'' mission and was aptly named after American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson. Orbit and classification Donaldjohanson is a member of the Erigone family (), a large carbonaceous asteroid family of nearly 2,000 known members, which is named after its parent body 163 Erigone. It is a relatively old family that was created approximately 130 million years ago. It orbits the Sun in the inner asteroid belt at a distance of 1.9–2.8 AU once every 3 years and 8 months (1,345 days; semi-major axis of 2.38 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.19 and an inclination of 4 ° with respect to the ecliptic. A first precovery was taken at the discove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gravity Assist
In orbital mechanics and aerospace engineering, a gravitational slingshot, gravity assist maneuver, or swing-by is the use of the relative movement (e.g. orbit around the Sun) and gravity of a planet or other astronomical object to alter the path and speed of a spacecraft, typically to save propellant and reduce expense. Gravity assistance can be used to accelerate a spacecraft, that is, to increase or decrease its speed or redirect its path. The "assist" is provided by the motion of the gravitating body as it pulls on the spacecraft. Any gain or loss of kinetic energy and velocity by a passing spacecraft is correspondingly lost or gained by the gravitational body, in accordance with Newton's Third Law. The gravity assist maneuver was first used in 1959 when the Soviet probe Luna 3 photographed the far side of Earth's Moon and it was used by interplanetary probes from Mariner 10 onward, including the two Voyager probes' notable flybys of Jupiter and Saturn. Explanation A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hal Levison
Harold F. (Hal) Levison (born 1959) is an American planetary scientist specializing in planetary dynamics. He currently works at the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, and studies planetary orbits and their evolution through Solar System history. Levison is the Principal Investigator of the ''Lucy'' mission to tour multiple Jupiter trojans, which was selected as the thirteenth mission in NASA's Discovery Program in January 2017. Among other achievements, Levison is the co-author of SWIFT, a commonly used symplectic integrator that solves planetary equations of motion for periods of billions of years. Levison argued for a distinction between what are now called dwarf planets and the other eight planet A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is neither a star nor its remnant. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis, which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to create a you ...s based on t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1967 album '' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band''. It was written primarily by John Lennon and credited to the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership. Lennon's son Julian inspired the song with a nursery school drawing that he called "Lucy – in the sky with diamonds". Shortly before the album's release, speculation arose that the first letter of each of the nouns in the title intentionally spelled "LSD", the initialism commonly used for the hallucinogenic drug lysergic acid diethylamide. Lennon repeatedly denied that he had intended it as a drug song, and attributed the song's fantastical imagery to his reading of Lewis Carroll's '' Alice in Wonderland'' books. The Beatles recorded "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" in March 1967. Adding to the song's ethereal qualities, the musical arrangement includes a Lowrey organ part heavily treated with studio effects, and a drone provided by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of all time and were integral to the development of counterculture of the 1960s, 1960s counterculture and popular music's recognition as an art form. Rooted in skiffle, beat music, beat and 1950s rock and roll, rock 'n' roll, their sound incorporated elements of classical music and traditional pop in innovative ways; the band also explored music styles ranging from folk music, folk and Music of India, Indian music to Psychedelic music, psychedelia and hard rock. As Recording practices of the Beatles, pioneers in recording, songwriting and artistic presentation, the Beatles revolutionised many aspects of the music industry and were often publicised as leaders of the era's Baby boomers, youth and sociocultural movements. Led by primary songwriter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar System
The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar System" and "solar system" structures in theinaming guidelines document. The name is commonly rendered in lower case ('solar system'), as, for example, in the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' an''Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary''. is the gravity, gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it. It Formation and evolution of the Solar System, formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The solar mass, vast majority (99.86%) of the system's mass is in the Sun, with most of the Jupiter mass, remaining mass contained in the planet Jupiter. The four inner Solar System, inner system planets—Mercury (planet), Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars—are terrest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
