The Washington Post: NASA will launch two new missions to asteroids in search of clues about the early solar system, the space agency announced Wednesday.
The first mission, scheduled to launch in 2021, will send a probe to study the Trojan asteroids that swarm ahead of and behind Jupiter and are thought to be relics of the earliest days of the solar system. The project has been dubbed “Lucy,” in honor of the 3.2-million-year-old Australopithecus who is humanity’s most famous ancient relative.
The second, slated for 2023, will send an orbiter to 16 Psyche, a massive metallic object in the asteroid belt that is thought to be the exposed iron core of a protoplanet.
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