NASA’s Lucy spacecraft is speeding toward another close encounter with an asteroid

By MARCIA DUNN Associated Press CAPE CANAVERAL Fla AP NASA s Lucy spacecraft will swoop past a small asteroid this weekend as it makes its way to an even bigger prize the unexplored swarms of asteroids out near Jupiter It will be the second asteroid encounter for Lucy launched in on a quest that will take it to space rocks The close approaches should help scientists better understand our early solar system when planets were forming asteroids are the ancient leftovers The upcoming flyby is a dress rehearsal for when Lucy reaches its first so-called Trojan asteroid near Jupiter Cranking up its three science instruments the spacecraft on Sunday will observe the harmless asteroid known as Donaldjohanson The encounter will take place million miles from Earth in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter so far away it will take minutes for each bit of content to reach flight controllers in Colorado The paleontologist for whom the asteroid is named plans to be at spacecraft builder and operator Lockheed Martin s Mission Control for all the action He discovered the fossil Lucy in Ethiopia years ago the spacecraft is named after the famous human ancestor NASA s Lucy will venture as close as miles to this asteroid an estimated miles in length but much shorter in width Scientists should have a better idea of its size and shape following the brief visit The spacecraft will zoom by at more than mph The asteroid is among countless fragments assumed to have resulted from a major collision million years ago It s not going to be a basic potato We already know that commented lead scientist Hal Levison of Southwest Research Institute Rather Levison reported the asteroid may resemble a bowling pin or even a snowman like Arrokoth the Kuiper Belt object visited by NASA s New Horizon spacecraft in The other possibility is that there are two elongated but separate asteroids far apart We don t know what to expect That s what makes this so cool he stated There will be no communications with Lucy during the flyby as the spacecraft turns its antenna away from Earth in order to track the asteroid Levison expects to have most of of the science information within a day Lucy s next stop the main event as Levison calls it will be the Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter s orbit around the sun Swarms of Trojans precede and follow the solar system s largest planet as it circles the sun Lucy will visit eight of them from through certain of them in pairs of two Lucy s first asteroid flyby was in when it swept past little Dinkinesh also in the main asteroid belt The spacecraft discovered a mini moon around it The Associated Press Fitness and Science Department receives endorsement from the Howard Hughes Clinical Institute s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation The AP is solely responsible for all content