Easter in company for the probe Lucy of NASA, that the April 20 he will make his according to Rendez-Vous with an asteroid of the main band: After Dinkineshvisited in November 2023 together with his satellite Selamit will be the turn of the little asteroid Donaldjohansonwhich takes its name from the US Paleontologist who discovered the Australopiteco fossil Lucy.
The probe will reach the Maximum approaching point to the Asteroid the April 20 at 19:51 Italian timewhen it will move on to 960 kilometers Of distance from the cosmic stone. The time will be the general test of the mission that awaits Lucy in the next decade: the probe was in fact launched in October 2021 to reach and study the Trojan asteroids who share the orbit of Jupiter around the sun, considered by many to be as i remains of the materials which have constituted i giant planets of the Solar System.
The close encounter with Donaldjohanson will be an opportunity for Experiment observation sequences very similar to those that will be made on Trojan asteroids. Will be employed All three on -board scientific tools: one camera in the high resolution visible, one photographic spectrometer in the visible and near infrared and one thermal spectrometer In the infrared. Unlike what Dinkinesh did, however, Lucy will interrupt the tracking of Donaldjohanson 40 seconds before the maximum approach to protect its sensitive tools from intense sunlight.
In these days the probe has already started to resume images of Donaldjohanson, gradually increasing the frequency of the shots as the distance is reduced. These preliminary data will be fundamental for improve tracking asteroid and for update the trajectory of the probe in real time.
The April 20about 30 minutes before the maximum approachLucy will orient himself to follow the asteroid, but his antenna will orient himself far from the earth, suspending communications. In this phase the probe will be driven by its tracking system and will rotate independently to keep Donaldjanson in sight and perform the observations. After the maximum approach, the probe will tilt by reorieting the solar panels towards the sun. About an hour later, it will restore communication with the earth. The transmission of collected scientific data will take several days.
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