NASA’s Lucy spacecraft to swing Earth’s atmosphere on October 16 to reach Jupiter asteroids

A NASA spacecraft named Lucy, the first mission to the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, will skim the earth's atmosphere, passing a mere 350 kms above the surface on October 16, to gain some of the orbital energy it needs to travel to this never-before-visited population of asteroids. The Trojan asteroids are trapped in orbits around the Sun at the same distance as Jupiter, either far ahead of or behind the giant planet.