{"id":123633,"date":"2021-10-15T08:00:28","date_gmt":"2021-10-15T12:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633///news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633//www.ucf.edu/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633//news/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633//?p=123633"},"modified":"2021-10-14T12:37:31","modified_gmt":"2021-10-14T16:37:31","slug":"ucf-part-of-nasa-mission-launching-saturday-to-explore-trojan-asteroids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633///news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633//www.ucf.edu/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633//news/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633//ucf-part-of-nasa-mission-launching-saturday-to-explore-trojan-asteroids/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633//","title":{"rendered":"UCF Part of NASA Mission Launching Saturday to Explore Trojan Asteroids"},"content":{"rendered":"
UCF Physics Professor Dan Britt is counting down to Saturday morning when NASA/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633/u2019s Lucy mission is set to blast off from the Space Coast./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633/n
Britt, a physicist and geologist, is part of the science team that will analyze the data Lucy collects from the Trojan asteroids near Jupiter. This area of the solar system is believed to hold remnants of the primordial material that formed the outer planets and could hold some answers about how the solar system formed./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633/n
The spacecraft will visit eight asteroids in a region of space that has never been visited before. NASA refers to the more than 7,000 asteroids in this region /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633/u201ctime capsules from the birth of our solar system./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633/u201d The mission, led by Harold “Hal” Levison from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, is named after Lucy /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633/u2014 the fossilized human remains found in Ethiopia in 1974. The skeleton was critical to understanding certain stages of human evolution. NASA/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633/u2019s mission promises to provide similar insight about Earth and the solar system, Britt says./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633/u201cYou get a great view from there,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633/u201d Britt says. /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633/u201cIt/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633/u2019s a bit of an early day with the launch window, but it will be worth it./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/123633/n