NASA Announces Two Asteroid Missions To Better Understand Our Solar System

NASA revealed dual robotic missions, named Lucy and Psyche, which will study asteroids in our solar system, the space agency announced Wednesday.

The space agency hopes the missions will help better understand one of the earliest phases of our solar system (less than 10 million years after the birth of our sun).

Lucy will launch in October 2021 and will visit the Trojan asteroids that circulate around Jupiter, while Psyche, which will launch in 2023, will study a unique metal asteroid, NASA says.

Lucy

Lucy, a robotic spacecraft, will launch in October 2021 and is expected to arrive at a main belt asteroid in 2025. Lucy will then explore six Trojan asteroids from 2027 to 2033. The objects, which are trapped by the Jupiter’s gravity, are thought to be relics of the earliest days of the solar system. The objects may have even formed far beyond Jupiter’s current orbit, NASA says.

“This is a unique opportunity,” said Harold F. Levison, principal investigator of the Lucy mission. “Because the Trojans are remnants of the primordial material that formed the outer planets, they hold vital clues to deciphering the history of the solar system.”

Psyche

The Psyche mission will focus on a massive metal asteroid, known as 16 Psych, which is about three times further away from the sun than Earth is. The object, which measures an estimated 130 miles in diameter, is unique because it is made up of mostly of metallic iron and nickel, similar to our planet’s core, as opposed to other asteroids that have rocky or icy bodies.

Scientists hope the Psyche mission will help better comprehend how planets and other objects separated into their layers, including cores, mantles and crusts, early in their histories.

“This is an opportunity to explore a new type of world – not one of rock or ice, but of metal,” said Psyche principal investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton. “16 Psyche is the only known object of its kind in the solar system, and this is the only way humans will ever visit a core. We learn about inner space by visiting outer space.”

Psyche, which is also a robotic mission, will launch in October 2023 and will arrive on the unique metal asteroid in 2030.

The missions were picked from five proposals through NASA’s Discovery Program. The projects in that program are shorter and are relatively low-cost, with their development capped at around $450 million.