What is it?

• Lucy is a NASA spacecraft on a  12-year quest to explore eight asteroids.
• Lucy’s $981 million mission is the first to aim for Jupiter’s so-called Trojan entourage: thousands of asteroids that share the gas giant’s expansive orbit around the sun.
  • Some of the Trojan asteroids precede Jupiter in its orbit, while others trail it.

Mission details

• The mysterious space rocks are among swarms of asteroids sharing Jupiter’s orbit, thought to be the pristine leftovers of a planetary formation. 
• The spacecraft also carries a disc made of lab-grown diamonds for one of its science instruments.
  • Lucy is named after the 3.2 million-year-old skeletal remains of a human ancestor found in Ethiopia nearly a half-century ago.

Why in News:

• NASA has launched Lucy mission recently.

Reference:

1. https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/nasas-asteroid-hunter-lucy-soars-into-sky-with-diamonds/article37019517.ece