您的当前位置:首页 >探索 >【】The beginnings of the solar system 正文
时间:2025-04-04 09:54:54 来源:网络整理编辑:探索
Two new missions selected by NASA Wednesday will help scientists understand the beginnings of our so
Two new missions selected by NASA Wednesday will help scientists understand the beginnings of our solar system.。
The missions -- called Lucy and Psyche and expected to launch in 2021 and 2023, respectively -- will send robotic spacecraft to asteroids thought to be leftovers from the dawn of planet formation billions of years ago.。
SEE ALSO:The end of the world: How NASA and FEMA will deal with a killer asteroid 。“Lucy will visit a target-rich environment of Jupiter’s mysterious Trojan asteroids, while Psyche will study a unique metal asteroid that’s never been visited before,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate, in a statement.。
Psyche's target -- the asteroid 16 Psyche -- is thought to be a 130-mile-wide, metal-rich asteroid that might somewhat resemble Earth's core, according to NASA.。
Researchers have even suggested that the asteroid is actually the leftover core of a doomed Mars-sized planet that "lost its rocky outer layers" when a number of impactors slammed into it billions of years in the past, NASA added.。
The asteroid is also metal as hell ... literally. 。
“This is an opportunity to explore a new type of world -- not one of rock or ice, but of metal,” Psyche principal investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton said in the statement.。
“16 Psyche is the only known object of its kind in the solar system, and this is the only way humans will ever visit a core. We learn about inner space by visiting outer space.”
It won't be a short journey for NASA. The asteroid is located nearly 300 million miles from the sun. 。
The Lucy mission, for its part, is going to be zipping around the solar system after its launch in 2021.。
Instead of staring deeply at one target, Lucy is designed to study a number of space rocks. The mission will visit one asteroid in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter and six Trojan asteroids -- rocky bodies trapped in two groups by Jupiter's gravity -- from 2025 to 2033, NASA said.。
Lucy will make a stop at its main belt target in 2025 and then start studying its first Trojan asteroid in 2027, eventually ending its mission in 2033.。
“This is a unique opportunity,” said Harold Levison, principal investigator of the Lucy mission, said in the statement.。
“Because the Trojans are remnants of the primordial material that formed the outer planets, they hold vital clues to deciphering the history of the solar system. Lucy, like the human fossil for which it is named, will revolutionize the understanding of our origins.”
The two asteroid missions were chosen from five Discovery program finalists announced in 2015, beating out two missions that would have sent spacecraft to Venus and another asteroid probe. 。
The other asteroid mission, called NEOCAM, didn't totally miss out, however. That spacecraft -- which is designed to hunt for potentially hazardous objects like asteroids near Earth -- will be funded for development for the next year by NASA.。
Under the parameters of the program, Psyche and Lucy should not exceed $450 million in cost of development.。
For perspective, that's on the low end of the cost spectrum for a NASA mission. Many of the space agency's flagship missions cost more than $1 billion.。
NASA's Messenger mission to Mercury and the alien planet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope were both funded and launched under the agency's Discovery program as well.。
Fyvush Finkel, Emmy winner for 'Picket Fences,' dies at 932025-04-04 09:31
下一秒要吃人?哈蘭德曬萬聖節造型 恐怖氛圍拉滿了2025-04-04 09:26
頭牌停賽主帥仍不選擇武磊 出場9分鍾1觸球1傳球2025-04-04 09:12
開局強勢領跑卻後勁不足 米蘭如何規避上賽季窘境 ?2025-04-04 09:08
Mom discovers security cameras hacked, kids' bedroom livestreamed2025-04-04 08:26
女足新帥難產為何?選帥成營銷戰 足協未執行競聘標準2025-04-04 08:01
米蘭陣容分析 :青春風暴成主力 老將仍是定海神針2025-04-04 07:55
頭牌停賽主帥仍不選擇武磊 出場9分鍾1觸球1傳球2025-04-04 07:45
PlayStation Now game streaming is coming to PC2025-04-04 07:42
米蘭羅馬主裁或被禁哨 無視VAR堅持給紅黑軍點球2025-04-04 07:18
Richard Branson 'thought he was going to die' in bike accident2025-04-04 09:43
看不過眼 !範德貝克被當工具用 曼聯球迷罵瘋了2025-04-04 09:21
梅西 :實話說不認為自己能拿金球 未來想再回巴薩2025-04-04 08:52
曝女足選帥陳婉婷破格獲得資格 中超或在12月中旬開賽2025-04-04 08:50
We asked linguists if Donald Trump speaks like that on purpose2025-04-04 08:46
熱刺名宿爆料努諾已被解雇 孔蒂波帥豐塞卡是新帥候選2025-04-04 08:29
韓國隊公布11月12強賽名單:孫興慜黃喜燦領銜 金玟哉在列2025-04-04 08:07
前女友:巴洛特利明知女兒是他的 還要求做DNA檢測2025-04-04 07:48
Fiji wins first2025-04-04 07:34
馬圖伊迪點破巴黎一隱憂 如無此劫可保戰無不勝2025-04-04 07:33