NASA’s Lucy made a close fly-by of planet Earth on October 16, as part of a gravity assist maneuver. Shortly before its closest approach, the spacecraft captured images of the Earth and Moon. On October 15, 2022, at a distance of 380,000 miles (620,000 km), NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured this im
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured this image of the Earth on October 15, 2022, as a part of an instrument calibration sequence at a distance of 380,000 miles . Credit: NASA/Goddard/SwRI’s Lucy made a close fly-by of planet Earth on October 16, as part of a gravity assist maneuver. Shortly before its closest approach, the spacecraft captured images of the Earth and Moon.
On October 15, 2022, at a distance of 380,000 miles , NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured this image of the Earth as a part of an instrument calibration sequence. The upper left of the image includes a view of Hadar, Ethiopia. This is home to the 3.2 million-year-oldTrojan asteroids. This ancient population of asteroid “fossils” orbit around the Sun at the same distance as Jupiter.
On October 13, 2022, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured this image of the Earth and the Moon from a distance of 890,000 miles . The image was taken as part of an instrument calibration sequence as the spacecraft approached Earth for its first of three Earth gravity assists. Credit: NASA/Goddard/SwRI NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured the above image of the Earth and the Moon from a distance of 890,000 miles on October 13, 2022. The image was taken as part of an instrument calibration sequence as the spacecraft approached Earth for its first of three Earth gravity assists. These Earth flybys provide Lucy with the speed required to reach the Trojan asteroids — small bodies that orbit the Sun at the same distance as Jupiter.
Both images in this article were taken with Lucy’s Terminal Tracking Camera system, a pair of identical cameras that are responsible for tracking the asteroids during Lucy’s high-speed encounters. The T2CAM system was designed, built, and tested by Malin Space Science Systems; Lockheed Martin Integrated the T2CAMs onto the Lucy spacecraft and operates them.