EINSTEIN’S AND CARL SAGAN’S THOUGHTS WILL BE BROADCAST INTO SPACE BY THE LUCY SPACECRAFT

This NASA asteroid exploration project will serve as a ‘time capsule,’ according to NASA. When is it going to be released?

The Lucy mission’s goal is to study Trojan asteroids, a group of space rocks that share Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun, in order to learn more about the solar system and the origin of planets. It’s named after the Beatles (for the song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds) and a fossil skeleton of our human ancestor. When it premieres in October 2021, it will include inspirational statements from a number of well-known figures, including Carl Sagan, Albert Einstein, The Beatles, and Martin Luther King Jr.

These asteroids, which are outside of the main asteroid belt, are “in many respects” fossils of “planet formation and evolution,” according to NASA.

On July 9, Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, placed the messaging board on the spacecraft. The messages are comparable to those sent out by NASA in the 1970s as part of the Voyager missions.

Lucy will not leave the solar system and travel into interstellar space, unlike the Pioneer and Voyager missions, therefore the plate will serve as a reminder to future generations of the mission’s goals.

According to the US space agency, the Lucy spacecraft will continue to wander between Trojan asteroids and Earth orbit for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years after it completes its mission in 2033 (after visiting 8 asteroids in 6 different orbits around the Sun).