Spacecraft in 2021 set their sights on Mars, asteroids and past

While a flurry of missions crowded round Mars this yr, some lesser-explored components of the photo voltaic system are about to get contemporary eyes.

Three international locations visited the Red Planet in 2021, sending orbiters, landers, rovers and even a helicopter. The United Arab Emirates efficiently put its first interplanetary spacecraft, known as Hope, into orbit in February, to check Mars’ local weather. China’s Zhurong rover has been trundling across the planet’s floor since May, learning the native geology and trying to find underground water ice (SN Online: 5/19/21). And NASA’s Perseverance rover, which landed in February, has been collaborating with a helicopter known as Ingenuity to discover an historical lake mattress and gather rocks for a future supply mission to Earth (SN Online: 2/17/21; SN Online: 4/30/21).

But whereas all eyes had been on Mars, different missions are embarking on journeys to check much more far-flung locations. After years of delays and billions of {dollars} over price range, the James Webb Space Telescope is lastly set to launch, no sooner than December 25, to probe the universe’s earliest galaxies, amongst different issues (SN: 10/9/21 & 10/23/21, p. 26).

Meanwhile, spacecraft are heading off to go to 11 asteroids within the photo voltaic system looking for clues to the origins of the planets, and water and life on Earth, in addition to methods to maintain our planet secure from errant area rocks.

Let’s meet these rock explorers.

In October, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft (illustrated) started its journey to the Trojan asteroids, which share an orbit across the solar with Jupiter.GSFC/NASA

Lucy

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft launched on October 16 on the primary mission to discover Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids, two teams of area rocks that share an orbit with Jupiter across the solar (SN Online: 10/15/21; SN: 5/13/17, p. 5). The asteroids occupy areas often called Lagrange factors, the place the gravitational pulls of Jupiter and the solar cancel one another out. These areas are like cosmic lifeless zones and have been amassing planetary flotsam for billions of years. Those asteroids and different bits of particles are like fossils of the early photo voltaic system. (Fittingly, the mission was named for the well-known hominid fossil Lucy.)

Over the subsequent 12 years, Lucy will make 5 flybys to watch seven Trojan asteroids, plus one asteroid in the principle belt between Mars and Jupiter for good measure. By the top of its mission, Lucy can have visited extra objects than every other NASA mission.

DART

The subsequent mission to go out was NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, which launched November 24 to intentionally ram into an asteroid in an try to change its orbit. That collision will check a method for deflecting harmful asteroids that might crash into Earth sooner or later.

The spacecraft’s vacation spot is a pair of asteroids known as Didymos and Dimorphos (SN: 8/15/20, p. 5). In late September 2022, DART will crash-land on Dimorphos whereas transferring at about 6.6 kilometers per second, which hopefully will shift its orbit round Didymos. Astronomers on Earth will have the ability to inform if the check labored by searching for a change in Dimorphos’ orbit time, and the European Space Agency will ship a follow-up probe known as Hera in 2024.

The Psyche mission will research the metal-rich asteroid 16 Psyche (illustrated), which will be the core of a protoplanet that misplaced its mantle and crust.Maxar, ASU, P. Rubin, JPL-Caltech/NASA

Psyche

Last up is Psyche, which is ready to launch in August 2022. The NASA spacecraft will go to 16 Psyche, an asteroid that appears to be made up nearly fully of metallic. It will be the uncovered core of a protoplanet that misplaced its outer mantle and crust in cosmic collisions way back. Since scientists can’t ship a mission to Earth’s core, a visit to 16 Psyche will be the closest we will get to a journey to the middle of the Earth.

Psyche will arrive at its vacation spot in 2026 and spend 21 months measuring the asteroid’s magnetic area and composition from orbit. One query is whether or not the asteroid actually is a planetary core. Even if not, the asteroid is a brand new type of world that no spacecraft has visited earlier than.