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

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Content Team
Image Credit: scitechdaily

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.