beatles. reporter: lucy s the first mission to investigate the trojan asteroid swarms which are asteroid clusters along jupiter s orbital path. lucy will collect the first high-resolution images of these asteroids. the spacecraft gets her name from the lucy fossil, an ancient human ancestor whose remains transformed the study of hominid evolution. nasa hopes this lucy transforms the understanding of the solar system. both the fossil and spacecraft name are nods to the beatles heat lucy in the sky with diamonds. johnny will love that. anyway, if you meet anyone up there, lucy, give them peace and love from me. reporter: and lucy does indeed carry a diamond as part of a beam splitter assembly. after making a few fly bys of earth, lucy is expected to reach her first objective, an asteroid
reporter: lucy is finally in the sky. the nasa spacecraft is on a 12-year mission to fly past eight ancient asteroids. lucy is the first mission to investigate the trojan asteroid swarms, which are asteroid clusters along jupiter s orbital path. armed with cameras, a thermometer, and an infrared imaging speck totrometerspectro collect the first images of these asteroids. she gets her name from the lucy fossil. nasa hopes its lucy transforms the understanding of the evolution of the solar system. both fossil and the spacecraft s name are nods to the beatles hit, lucy in the sky with diamonds. lucy is going back in the sky with diamonds. johnny will love that. anyway, if you meet anyone up there, lucy, give them peace and love from me. reporter: and lucy does, indeed, carry a diamond as part
spectrometer, lucy will collect the first high-resolution images of these asteroids. the spacecraft gets her name from the lucy fossil, an ancient human ancestor whose remains transformed the study of hominid evolution. nasa hopes its lucy transforms the understanding of the evolution of the solar system. boat the fossil and the spacecraft s name are nods to the beatles hit lucy in the sky with diamonds. lucy is going back in the sky with diamonds. if you meet anyone up there, lucy, give them peace and love from me. reporter: lucy does indeed carry a diamond. as part of a beam splitter assembly. about 3 1/2 years from now, after making a few 30-byes of earth for a gravity slingshot boost, lucy is expected to reach her first objective, an asteroid named donald johansen in the as detroit belt between earth and jupiter. she ll then travel to the trojan
first of all, why lucy? the name? lu is a first of all, why lucy? the name? lucy is a hominid first of all, why lucy? the name? lucy is a hominid fossil first of all, why lucy? the name? | lucy is a hominid fossil discovered in ethiopia. it enabled archaeologists to piece together the human record. a little bit like the lucy fossil, the lucy mission will be looking at space archaeology, so we are looking at rocks that are fundamental to the universe, to our solar system. they are primordial. they have changed since the birth of our solar system. so it is like a little bit of a throwback, a bit of a nod to the archaeology that has already been done on the earth to explaining how we got here, as we go off into space and explore the same thing, really. how did we get here? how did we evolve? did the solar system look like at its very beginning? hence the name lucy, it is not an acronym, it is actually just a name. 50 is not an acronym, it is actually just a name- is not an acronym, i