The Lucy mission has passed all of its prelaunch tests and is set to leave Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at around 5:30 a.m. ET on October 16.
The Trojan asteroids, which borrow their name from Greek mythology, orbit the sun in two swarms -- one that's ahead of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, and a second one that lags behind it.
Gigantic Comet Approaching From Outer Solar System May Be The Largest Ever Seen
A comet so huge it was initially mistaken for a dwarf planet is on an inward-bound trajectory from the outer Solar System.
There's no reason to worry – C/2014 UN 271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein), as the comet is called, will approach no closer to the Sun than just outside the orbit of Saturn.
A bigger nursery for the solar system's first formed solids
Calcium-Aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs) in meteorites are the oldest dated solids that formed within the solar system. They carry crucial information regarding the environmental conditions of the earliest stages of the protoplanetary disk before any of the planets formed.
"Our findings indicate that CAI formation during molecular cloud infall and disk build-up likely occurred at greater distances from the sun that we thought before, potentially up to planet-forming regions of the solar system," said LLNL postdoc Quinn Shollenberger, a co-author of the paper.
What happens to interstellar objects captured by the solar system?
We know of two ISOs for certain: "Oumuamua and comet 2I/Borisov. There must've been others, probably many of them. But we've only recently gained the technology to see them. We'll likely discover many more of them soon, thanks to new facilities like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
Nedagolla meteorite: Hybrid rock hints at solar system smash-up | New Scientist
A meteorite that fell on Earth more than a century ago may contain some of the first concrete evidence for a cosmic mash-up in the early solar system.
Following the birth of our sun 4.5 billion years ago, it is thought that Jupiter's formation caused two reservoirs of asteroids to gather in the solar system, one inside the giant planet's orbit and one outside.
Sci-Simplified: Here's All You Need to Know About Mysterious, Hypothetical 'Planet 9' of Our
It has been 15 years since Pluto—previously known as the ninth planet of the solar system—was demoted (sadly!) to the status of a dwarf planet. Some of us are still not over it! The decision to demote Pluto, while astronomically sound, was difficult to digest for sentimental reasons.
However, Michael Brown, one of the scientists who pushed for Pluto to be stripped of its planetary status, had no trouble moving on. He seems to have already found a replacement for the dwarf planet: the infamous Planet 9!
There Might Be a Mars-Like Planet Hiding in the Outer Solar System - ExtremeTech
If the 21st century has taught us any astronomical lessons, it’s that counting planets is hard. In 2000, there were nine planets, and now there are eight, but that might not last.
All the planetary uncertainty lies in the outer reaches of the solar system, beyond the orbit of Neptune. This is where Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto, which we thought was a planet for decades but has since been demoted to a dwarf planet.
This Is the Largest Moon in the Solar System – 24/7 Wall St.
There are 214 moons in our solar system . Of these, 158 are “confirmed” and another 56 are “provisional,” meaning a moon that has been seen only once. Of the 16 moons that have mean diameters of over kilometers, four orbit Jupiter, four orbit Saturn and four orbit Uranus.
Happening on Twitter
#LucyMission is packing up for its trip to space! 💼 Our first trip to Jupiter's ancient Trojan asteroids is set t… https://t.co/MIYYswQQvT NASA (from Pale Blue Dot) Tue Sep 28 23:30:11 +0000 2021
The Lucy spacecraft is being prepped for encapsulation in its @ulalaunch payload fairings. Today's photos are some… https://t.co/oiKZESzRLr NASA_LSP (from Kennedy Space Center, FL) Wed Sep 29 21:22:40 +0000 2021
The first NASA mission to study Jupiter's Trojan asteroid swarms is getting ready to launch next month https://t.co/XxP9rHSfYc CNN Wed Sep 29 01:36:30 +0000 2021
Lift and Mate ✅ Preparations for @NASA's #LucyMission are underway! Earlier this month, the @ulalaunch Centaur sta… https://t.co/DdEi9RgGdR NASA_LSP (from Kennedy Space Center, FL) Wed Sep 29 13:02:49 +0000 2021
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