Thursday 5 January 2017

comet and cupid

NASA intends to make good on a 2014 proposal and launch a pair of missions within the six years to two very exotic locations.
One destination is the massive metallic asteroid 16 Psyche (named for the mythological tale of Cupid and Psyche, which astronomers believe to be the nickel-iron core of a proto-planet that was destroyed in the early stages of the formation of the Solar System. The other mission, Lucy—named after the hominid female discovered in Africa and recognised as the missing-link (herself named after “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”), will explore the so called Trojan asteroids, pulled away from the main belt by Jupiter’s gravity. While not much is not known about the nature of the Trojans, researchers believe that they represent the fossil remnants of planet formation. Aside from the pure exploratory value, the projects also will look at the feasibility of conducting mining operations, whose wealth make the notion of scarcity seem ridiculous.