1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,474 [Music throughout] 2 00:00:19,019 --> 00:00:22,922 The Trojan asteroids are small bodies in our Solar System. 3 00:00:22,956 --> 00:00:24,958 They share an orbit with Jupiter. 4 00:00:24,958 --> 00:00:27,227 There's two swarms of them. 5 00:00:27,227 --> 00:00:30,630 One located 60 degrees ahead of Jupiter in its orbit, 6 00:00:30,630 --> 00:00:35,201 and the other swarm is located 60 degrees behind Jupiter in its orbit. 7 00:00:35,201 --> 00:00:39,773 And these Trojan asteroids are remnants from planetary formation. 8 00:00:39,806 --> 00:00:43,676 So sometimes we'll call them the fossils of Solar System formation. 9 00:00:44,010 --> 00:00:48,181 Their near neighbors might have gone into forming the giant planets. 10 00:00:48,181 --> 00:00:53,086 And so these objects then became captured in their locations today. 11 00:00:53,086 --> 00:00:56,423 And so in that way, we can look and see what went 12 00:00:56,656 --> 00:00:59,259 into forming the planets in our Solar System. 13 00:00:59,492 --> 00:01:03,663 The main goal of the Lucy mission is to explore the Trojan asteroids. 14 00:01:03,730 --> 00:01:07,567 We want to understand where these asteroids came from 15 00:01:07,867 --> 00:01:09,903 and why they're so diverse. 16 00:01:10,203 --> 00:01:14,107 And this is going to be our first ever exploration of these objects. 17 00:01:14,407 --> 00:01:19,479 From the Earth, we can see certain features on the Trojan asteroids. 18 00:01:19,679 --> 00:01:22,982 We can see where they're located. We can see their colors. 19 00:01:23,249 --> 00:01:25,085 And we can get spectra. 20 00:01:25,085 --> 00:01:28,755 Spectra can tell you about the surface composition. 21 00:01:29,055 --> 00:01:32,725 A spectrum is when you take light and spread it out 22 00:01:32,725 --> 00:01:34,327 into all its different wavelengths. 23 00:01:34,327 --> 00:01:38,164 And so you have the brightness of the light as a function of wavelength. 24 00:01:38,231 --> 00:01:40,467 So think of it like a rainbow. 25 00:01:40,567 --> 00:01:44,337 But you're going to divide up the colors even more finely 26 00:01:44,337 --> 00:01:47,540 than just ROYGBIV. 27 00:01:47,574 --> 00:01:50,743 From Earth, the Trojan asteroids are just a point of light, and you can't 28 00:01:51,244 --> 00:01:55,281 tell one part of the Trojan asteroid composition versus another part. 29 00:01:55,515 --> 00:01:59,786 And Lucy is going to be able to get that detail close up. 30 00:01:59,986 --> 00:02:03,289 We'll be able to do that by taking this spacecraft 31 00:02:03,289 --> 00:02:05,692 and these instruments to the Trojan asteroids. 32 00:02:05,692 --> 00:02:07,026 And we'll be able to see 33 00:02:07,026 --> 00:02:10,763 how the surface composition varies across the Trojan asteroids. 34 00:02:11,164 --> 00:02:13,867 Additionally, we have really large 35 00:02:13,967 --> 00:02:18,271 solar arrays because we are solar powered spacecraft. 36 00:02:18,404 --> 00:02:20,507 The spacecraft gets its power from the Sun. 37 00:02:20,740 --> 00:02:21,875 At the Trojan asteroids 38 00:02:21,875 --> 00:02:25,812 we're more than five times further from the Sun than Earth is. 39 00:02:25,812 --> 00:02:27,313 So there's much less light. 40 00:02:27,313 --> 00:02:30,483 We need large solar arrays to power our spacecraft. 41 00:02:30,583 --> 00:02:34,320 And in fact, we will be the furthest operating 42 00:02:34,654 --> 00:02:38,124 spacecraft powered by solar arrays during our mission.