NASA's Lucy Mission Captures First Images of Mysterious Trojan Asteroids

NASA's LUCY mission, which launched in 2021, has captured the first images of its asteroid targets, including Eurybates, Polymele, Leucus, and Orus. LUCY is on a 12-year mission to study the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, a group of space rocks orbiting the sun with the gas giant. The spacecraft will visit six Trojan asteroids between 2027 and 2028, before heading off to the pair of giant asteroids known as Patroclus-Menoetius. The mission takes its name from the fossilized human ancestor named "Lucy," which provided unique insights into humanity's evolution, akin to what scientists hope the spacecraft LUCY will do for the solar system.