Scientists with the Colorado-built spacecraft named Lucy couldn't resist a flyby of a small asteroid that's been showing a mysterious variance in light patterns.
LITTLETON, Colo. — A Colorado-built spacecraft named Lucy made a brief unscheduled flyby of a small asteroid Wednesday morning while on its way to study a different asteroid belt even farther away from Earth.
"When you look at how the light is varying when you look at it from Earth and when you look at it from the spacecraft, they're not behaving in a consistent way," he said."It could be that there's a satellite, or maybe it's a binary, or maybe it's just got a very weird shape." Lucy is a very Colorado mission. The concept and the science were all developed in Boulder at the Southwest Research Institute. The spacecraft was all designed and built by Lockheed Martin at their Waterton Canyon facility in Littleton. And the launch vehicle was designed by United Launch Alliance in Centennial.
“The asteroids are leftovers and have basically been frozen in time,"said Levison."So in a way they are the fossils of planet formation.”
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Giant Planets Like Jupiter Can Be Bad News For Life, Say ScientistsI'm an experienced science, travel and photography journalist and stargazer writing about exploring the night sky, total solar eclipses, moon-gazing, astro-travel, astronomy and space exploration. I'm the editor of WhenIsTheNextEclipse.com, SmartTelescopeReviews.
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