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Lucy and Psyche - NASA plans seven-year trip to Jupiter's Trojans

Capt'n Midnight · 2017-01-07 19:17:54

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/05/nasa_trip_to_jupiters_trojans/ see https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-two-missions-to-explore-the-early-solar-system/

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07-01-2017 8:17pm

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Capt'n Midnight

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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/05/nasa_trip_to_jupiters_trojans/

The first mission, named Lucy, will launch in October 2021 and will head off to the gas giant of Jupiter to explore its Trojan zones. These are two points on either side of the planet where the gravitational pull of the sun and Jupiter equalize and trap clusters of asteroids left over from the beginnings of planetary formation, and Lucy will probe six of them.

...
The second mission, dubbed Psyche for reasons that will become obvious, will investigate the shiniest object in the solar system. The asteroid, known as 16 Psyche, appears to be made up almost entirely of metal and the astroboffins think that it's the remains of an ancient planet's core that has had its surrounding rocks pounded away by millennia of impacts from space debris.

see
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-two-missions-to-explore-the-early-solar-system/

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