Los Angeles [US], November 2: NASA's Lucy spacecraft is scheduled to fly by asteroid Dinkinesh on Wednesday, its first close-up look at an asteroid, according to NASA.
The flyby will help the Lucy mission to test its instruments in preparation for visits in the next decade to multiple Trojan asteroids that circle the Sun in the same orbit as Jupiter.
Dinkinesh, less than one kilometer wide, circles the Sun in the main belt of asteroids located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Lucy has been visually tracking Dinkinesh since Sept. 3, according to NASA.
Dinkinesh will be the first of 10 asteroids that Lucy will visit on its 12-year voyage.
The primary aim of the Lucy mission, which launched on Oct. 16, 2021, is to survey the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, a never-before-explored population of small bodies that orbit the Sun.
Source: Xinhua