APOD: Lucy Launches to Eight Asteroids (2021 Oct 20)

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APOD: Lucy Launches to Eight Asteroids (2021 Oct 20)

Post by APOD Robot » Wed Oct 20, 2021 4:06 am

Image Lucy Launches to Eight Asteroids

Explanation: Why would this mission go out as far as Jupiter -- but then not visit Jupiter? Lucy's plan is to follow different leads about the origin of our Solar System than can be found at Jupiter -- where Juno now orbits. Jupiter is such a massive planet that its gravity captures numerous asteroids that orbit the Sun ahead of it -- and behind. These trojan asteroids formed all over our Solar System and some may have been trapped there for billions of years. Flying by these trojan asteroids enables studying them as fossils that likely hold unique clues about our early Solar System. Lucy, named after a famous fossil skeleton which was named after a famous song, is scheduled to visit eight asteroids from 2025 to 2033. Pictured, Lucy's launch was captured with reflection last week aboard a powerful Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA.

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Re: APOD: Lucy Launches to Eight Asteroids (2021 Oct 20)

Post by bystander » Wed Oct 20, 2021 4:23 am

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Re: APOD: Lucy Launches to Eight Asteroids (2021 Oct 20)

Post by Ann » Wed Oct 20, 2021 6:54 am

Not much to say, except...

Click to play embedded YouTube video.
Click to play embedded YouTube video.

"Lucy" is a fossilized remnant of an early hominid that lived 3.2 million years ago in present-day Ethiopia. And Lucy, I mean Lucy the probe, is going to visit trojan asteroids near Jupiter, which are "fossilized remnants" of the early Solar system which is the mother of us all.

So why was Lucy the hominid named Lucy? It's because paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson happened to play "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by the Beatles on the night after he had discovered the remnants of Lucy.

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Re: APOD: Lucy Launches to Eight Asteroids (2021 Oct 20)

Post by orin stepanek » Wed Oct 20, 2021 12:03 pm

Awesome!🤩
LucyLaunchB_Kraus_960.jpg
Magnificent photo of the launch of Lucy on Atlas V Rocket! To
explore Jovian asteroids! 8-)
jupiter_trojans-slower.gif
I can see how Jupiter protects the inner planets from catastrophe!
I hope nothing changes this arrangement!
4A97B19400000578-5549749-A_cat_astrophe_-a-55_1522166668555.jpg
Poor kitty! Kitty says why do this to me? I didn't hurt
anyone! 😢
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Re: APOD: Lucy Launches to Eight Asteroids (2021 Oct 20)

Post by XgeoX » Wed Oct 20, 2021 12:23 pm

I have never had the opportunity to see a big rocket launch. 🙁

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Re: APOD: Lucy Launches to Eight Asteroids (2021 Oct 20)

Post by Sa Ji Tario » Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:42 pm

In Olduvai, Africa, several times traveled while searching was being carried out, the fossil that would mark the history of paleontology was resting, at that time a song was popularized with the name of Lucy and at the time, Dr. Leakey gave his name to the fossil of a 2.5 million year old female. Also called Lucy the probe that began to fly is a mission to visit the oldest asteroids in the Solar System among the "Trojans", (sometime it will among the "Greeks") that are subject to the Lagrange points L4 and L5 and they are so called because they are families of asteroids whose orbits are almost similar and bear the names of the Trojan heroes some and Greeks the others, although there is a Trojan among the Greeks and a Greek among the Trojans and as the mission is somewhat different from the others, there will be some novelty.-
"" prey "in another of them.

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Re: APOD: Lucy Launches to Eight Asteroids (2021 Oct 20)

Post by neufer » Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:46 pm

https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/blog/snoopy-charlie-brown-and-apollo-10 wrote:
Snoopy, Charlie Brown and Apollo 10
Published on May 16, 2019 by Alaina

<<On May 18, 1969, Apollo 10 astronauts Thomas Stafford, Gene Cernan and John Young launched from (what was then) Cape Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39B. Apollo 10 was a complete “dress rehearsal” Moon landing, without actually making contact with the lunar surface. It was an important mission as Apollo 11 would not be ready to land on the Moon as planned without Apollo 10’s run-through.

NASA began collaborating with Charles Schulz in the 1960s. As a popular household character, Snoopy became the mascot for NASA’s spaceflight safety initiative. Schulz created comic strips of Snoopy on the Moon, helping to inspire excitement about America’s space program. These beloved characters became the mascots of Apollo 10.

The command module was named Charlie Brown and the lunar module was named Snoopy. Because the lunar module was set to skim over the surface of the Moon, it was named Snoopy because it was going to “snoop” around Apollo 11’s future landing site. Therefore, it was also fitting that the command module be named Charlie Brown, Snoopy’s companion. When the lunar module rendezvoused with the command module after surveying the Moon’s surface, astronaut Thomas Stafford said, "Snoopy and Charlie Brown are hugging each other."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_10 wrote: <<Apollo 10 (May 18 – 26, 1969) was a human spaceflight, the fourth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, and the second (after Apollo 8) to orbit the Moon. It was the F mission: a "dress rehearsal" for the first Moon landing, testing all the components and procedures just short of actually landing. While astronaut John Young remained in the Command Module (Charlie Brown) orbiting the Moon, astronauts Thomas Stafford and Gene Cernan flew the Apollo Lunar Module (Snoopy) to a descent orbit within 15.6 km of the lunar surface, the point where powered descent for landing would begin. After orbiting the Moon 31 times, Apollo 10 returned safely to Earth, and its success enabled the first actual landing (Apollo 11) two months later.

Apollo 10 set the record for the highest speed attained by a crewed vehicle: 11.08 km/s on May 26, 1969, during the return from the Moon. The Apollo 10 crew are the humans who have traveled the farthest away from their (Houston) homes, at a distance of 408,950 kilometers. While most Apollo missions orbited the Moon at the same 111 kilometers from the lunar surface, the distance between the Earth and Moon varies by about 43,000 kilometers, between perigee and apogee, throughout each lunar month, and the Earth's rotation makes the distance to Houston vary by at most another 11,000 kilometers each day. The Apollo 10 crew reached the farthest point in their orbit around the far side of the Moon at about the same time Earth's rotation put Houston nearly a full Earth diameter farther away.

This dress rehearsal for a Moon landing brought the Apollo Lunar Module to 15.6 km from the lunar surface, at the point where powered descent would begin on the actual landing. Practicing this approach orbit would refine knowledge of the lunar gravitational field needed to calibrate the powered descent guidance system to within 1 nautical mile needed for a landing. Earth-based observations, uncrewed spacecraft, and Apollo 8 had respectively allowed calibration to within 200 nautical miles, 20 nautical miles (37 km), and 5 nautical miles. Except for this final stretch, the mission was designed to duplicate how a landing would have gone, both in space and for ground control, putting NASA's flight controllers and extensive tracking and control network through a rehearsal.

The ascent stage was loaded with the amount of fuel and oxidizer it would have had remaining if it had lifted off from the surface and reached the altitude at which the Apollo 10 ascent stage fired; this was only about half the total amount required for lift off and rendezvous with the CSM. The mission-loaded LM weighed 13,941 kg, compared to 15,095 kg for the Apollo 11 LM which made the first landing. Craig Nelson wrote in his book Rocket Men that NASA took special precaution to ensure Stafford and Cernan would not attempt to make the first landing. Nelson quoted Cernan as saying "A lot of people thought about the kind of people we were: 'Don't give those guys an opportunity to land, 'cause they might!' So the ascent module, the part we lifted off the lunar surface with, was short-fueled. The fuel tanks weren't full. So had we literally tried to land on the Moon, we couldn't have gotten off.">>
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Three chicks, six greeks & a geo-geek

Post by neufer » Wed Oct 20, 2021 5:43 pm

  • QUETA: "KEH-tah" (named in honor of Olympian Enri-QUETA Basilio)
    ........................................................
    Eurybates: "yoo-RIB-a-teez" or "you-ri-BAY-teez"
    Polymele: "pah-li-MEH-lee" or "pah-LIM-ah-lee"
    Leucus: "LYOO-kus" or "LOO-kus"
    Orus: "OR-us"
    ........................................................
    http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 92#p317392
    Patroclus: "pa-TROH-klus" or "PAT-roh-klus"
    Menoetius: "men-EE-shus"
http://oeis.org/A001038 wrote:

Code: Select all

n 		a(n)
....................................
1		2
2		2
3		10
....................................
4		52246
....................................
5		2631645209645100680144
6		312242081385925594286511113384607360432260178128338777217975928751832
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/52246_Donaldjohanson wrote: <<52246 Donaldjohanson is a carbonaceous Erigonian asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 4 kilometers 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.

52246 Donaldjohanson is a member of the Erigone family (406), 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. 52246 Donaldjohanson orbits the Sun in the inner asteroid belt at a distance of 1.9–2.8 AU (semi-major axis of 2.38 AU) once every 3 years and 8 months. Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.19 and an inclination of 4° with respect to the ecliptic. 52246 Donaldjohanson is planned to be visited by the Lucy spacecraft. The flyby is scheduled for 20 April 2025, and will approach the asteroid to a distance of 922 kilometers & velocity of 13.4 km/s.>>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erigone_(daughter_of_Icarius) wrote:
........................................................................
The Erigone Girl.

<<In Greek mythology, Erigone (Ancient Greek: Ἠριγόνη) was the daughter of Icarius of Athens. Icarius was cordial towards Dionysus, who gave his shepherds wine. They became intoxicated and killed Icarius, thinking he had poisoned them. His daughter, Erigone, and her dog, Maera, found his body. Erigone hanged herself over her father's grave.

Erigone was placed in the stars as the constellation Virgo by Dionysus or Zeus who pitied their misfortune.

It was the instability of Dionysus who gave all the maidens alcohol as part of his cult.
>>
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Re: APOD: Lucy Launches to Eight Asteroids (2021 Oct 20)

Post by Fred the Cat » Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:02 pm

Trying to search for info on how many or how concentrated the asteroids are in the two areas Lucy will explore seems to indicate “we’ll find out”. Navigating through them could be akin to early ships sailing coasts of unknown waters.

Kind of like throwing darts in the dark then checking how you did. :ohno:
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Re: APOD: Lucy Launches to Eight Asteroids (2021 Oct 20)

Post by Sa Ji Tario » Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:06 pm

Sa Ji Tario wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:42 pm In Olduvai, Africa, several times traveled while searching was being carried out, the fossil that would mark the history of paleontology was resting, at that time a song was popularized with the name of Lucy and at the time, Dr. Leakey gave his name to the fossil of a 2.5 million year old female. Also called Lucy the probe that began to fly is a mission to visit the oldest asteroids in the Solar System among the "Trojans", (sometime it will among the "Greeks") that are subject to the Lagrange points L4 and L5 and they are so called because they are families of asteroids whose orbits are almost similar and bear the names of the Trojan heroes some and Greeks the others, although there is a Trojan among the Greeks and a Greek among the Trojans and as the mission is somewhat different from the others, there will be some novelty.-
"" prey "in another of them.
Sorry, confusion with works by Dr. Donald Carl Johanson and Dr. Leakey

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Re: APOD: Lucy Launches to Eight Asteroids (2021 Oct 20)

Post by neufer » Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:12 am

Fred the Cat wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:02 pm
Trying to search for info on how many or how concentrated the asteroids are in the two areas Lucy will explore seems to indicate “we’ll find out”. Navigating through them could be akin to early ships sailing coasts of unknown waters. Kind of like throwing darts in the dark then checking how you did. :ohno:
If collisions (i.e., ~10 km approaches) between dense main asteroid belt bodies are expected to occur only once every 10 million years... and considering that no spacecraft has ever had a problem traversing the main asteroid belt... I wouldn't worry about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_belt#Collisions wrote:

:arrow: The main asteroid belt (the white donut-shaped cloud), the Hildas (the orange "triangle" just inside the orbit of Jupiter), the Jupiter trojans (green), and the near-Earth asteroids/

<<The high population of the asteroid belt makes for a very active environment, where collisions between asteroids occur frequently (on astronomical time scales). Collisions between main-belt bodies with a mean radius of 10 km are expected to occur about once every 10 million years.>>.
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Re: APOD: Lucy Launches to Eight Asteroids (2021 Oct 20)

Post by Fred the Cat » Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:56 am

neufer wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:12 am
Fred the Cat wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:02 pm
Trying to search for info on how many or how concentrated the asteroids are in the two areas Lucy will explore seems to indicate “we’ll find out”. Navigating through them could be akin to early ships sailing coasts of unknown waters. Kind of like throwing darts in the dark then checking how you did. :ohno:
If collisions (i.e., ~10 km approaches) between dense main asteroid belt bodies are expected to occur only once every 10 million years... and considering that no spacecraft has ever had a problem traversing the main asteroid belt... I wouldn't worry about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_belt#Collisions wrote:

:arrow: The main asteroid belt (the white donut-shaped cloud), the Hildas (the orange "triangle" just inside the orbit of Jupiter), the Jupiter trojans (green), and the near-Earth asteroids/

<<The high population of the asteroid belt makes for a very active environment, where collisions between asteroids occur frequently (on astronomical time scales). Collisions between main-belt bodies with a mean radius of 10 km are expected to occur about once every 10 million years.>>.
From the first link I had read

"By 1961, more than half a century after Wolf identified the first Trojan, only 13 more had been discovered. With further improvements in instrumentation, the number increased, first slowly and then in a rush. By early 2017, more than 6,500 had been spotted: 4,184 at Jupiter’s L4 point and 2,326 at L5. Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science and a decorated detector of small bodies within the solar system, has said that the number of Jupiter Trojans may well exceed the total number of objects in the main asteroid belt.
But despite the plethora of discovered Jupiter Trojans, we actually know relatively little about them. Most of our observations have been made with Earth-based telescopes. And although astronomers have discovered fewer Trojans in the L5 cloud than in the L4 cloud, this could be a result of observational biases in their coverage."

Referring to the Trojans and the Greeks, I was curious if Lucy had some avoidance capabilities should it encounter something unexpected during the journeys. The history of navigating through uncharted water has improved somewhat over the years. :yes:
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Re: APOD: Lucy Launches to Eight Asteroids (2021 Oct 20)

Post by neufer » Thu Oct 21, 2021 2:12 pm

Fred the Cat wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 1:56 am
From the first link I had read

"By 1961, more than half a century after Wolf identified the first Trojan, only 13 more had been discovered. With further improvements in instrumentation, the number increased, first slowly and then in a rush. By early 2017, more than 6,500 had been spotted: 4,184 at Jupiter’s L4 point and 2,326 at L5. Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science and a decorated detector of small bodies within the solar system, has said that the number of Jupiter Trojans may well exceed the total number of objects in the main asteroid belt.
But despite the plethora of discovered Jupiter Trojans, we actually know relatively little about them. Most of our observations have been made with Earth-based telescopes. And although astronomers have discovered fewer Trojans in the L5 cloud than in the L4 cloud, this could be a result of observational biases in their coverage."

Referring to the Trojans and the Greeks, I was curious if Lucy had some avoidance capabilities should it encounter something unexpected during the journeys. The history of navigating through uncharted water has improved somewhat over the years. :yes:
The faintness of zodiacal light (vis-a-vis direct Sunlight) is in itself a pretty good indicator of the amount of material a spacecraft (like Juno for instance) will accidentally encounter in any trip to the orbit of Jupiter. (Fortunately, that material is usually less that 10 micrometers in size rather than millimeters or more.) As with ships at sea the primary danger has always been the clutter surrounding the final destinations rather than in the long voyages to those destinations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_collision wrote:
<<Ship collision is the structural impact between two ships or one ship and a floating or still object such as an iceberg. As sea lanes are getting more congested and ship speeds higher, there is a good possibility that a ship may experience an important accident during her lifetime. Denser sea routes increase the probability of an accident—in particular a collision—involving ships or ships and shore or offshore structures.>>
Once the Pioneer & Voyager Spacecraft safely avoided mishap collisions (as expected) this has not been a major concern.
https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/frequently-asked-questions/ wrote:
Q: When we send spacecraft through the asteroid belt to the outer planets, how do we navigate the craft through the belt?

A: Pioneers 10 and 11 had preceded the Voyagers to Jupiter and the asteroid belt was a major concern for them. By the 1960's more than 3000 minor planets had been discovered and their orbits well determined. Even 50,000 minor bodies spread over the volume of space occupied by the asteroid belt would produce little direct danger, although a chance collision with an uncatalogued object was possible. "While the largest of the asteroids were known and their orbits charted, many of the asteroids moved in unknown orbits. Although the risk of a spacecraft colliding with a charted asteroid was negligible, there was no way to estimate how many particles the size of a grain of sand might be present in the asteroid belt to collide with the spacecraft and seriously damage it". (From Pioneer, First to Jupiter, Saturn and Beyond, NASA SP-446, 1980) Only by going there could the danger be properly assessed - and Pioneer was first.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_be_dragons wrote: <<"Here be dragons" (Latin: hic sunt dracones) means dangerous or unexplored territories, in imitation of a medieval practice of putting illustrations of dragons, sea monsters and other mythological creatures on uncharted areas of maps where potential dangers were thought to exist. Although several early maps, such as the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, have illustrations of mythological creatures for decoration, the phrase itself is an anachronism. Until the Ostrich Egg Globe was offered for sale in 2012 at the London Map Fair held at the Royal Geographical Society., the only known historical use of this phrase in the Latin form "HC SVNT DRACONES" (i.e., hic sunt dracones, 'here are dragons') was the Hunt-Lenox Globe dating from 1504. Earlier maps contain a variety of references to mythical and real creatures, but the Ostrich Egg Globe and its twin the Lenox Globe are the only known surviving globes to bear this phrase. The term appears on both globes at the peripheral, extreme end of the Asian continent. The classical phrase used by medieval cartographers was HIC SVNT LEONES (literally, "here are lions") when denoting unknown territories on maps.>>
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Re: APOD: Lucy Launches to Eight Asteroids (2021 Oct 20)

Post by neufer » Tue Nov 09, 2021 9:52 pm

Click to play embedded YouTube video.
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