The Jupiter
trojans are a large group of asteroids that share the orbit with planet Jupiter
as it revolves around the Sun. They are commonly called Trojan asteroids or
simply Trojans.

American
space agency NASA launched on Saturday a first-of-its-kind mission that will
study Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids. Scientists believe that these rocks are
remnants of the primordial material that formed the solar system’s outer planets.

The 588
Achilles was the first Jupiter Trojan to be discovered. It was spotted by
German astronomer Max Wolf in 1906. Since then, scientists around the
world have spotted more than 9,800 Jupiter Trojans as of May 2021. These rocks
are named from Greek mythology after a figure of the Trojan War by convention.
This is the reason why there is a “trojan” in the name. The total
number of Jupiter trojans larger than one km in diameter is believed to be about
one million, approximately equal to the number of asteroids larger than one km in
the asteroid belt.

The term
“Trojan Asteroid” is specific to the asteroids co-orbital with
Jupiter. The general term “trojan” is sometimes more generally applied
to other small Solar System bodies with similar relationships to larger bodies.
Mars has its own trojans and so does Neptune. Recently even Earth Trojan was
discovered. The term “Trojan asteroid” is normally understood to
specifically mean the Jupiter trojans because the first Trojans were discovered
near Jupiter’s orbit and Jupiter currently has by far the most known Trojans.

Lucy will be
using terminal tracking cameras (T2CAM) to track the asteroids as it passes
within 600 miles of each target. In addition to the spectrographs and robotic
cameras, Lucy also has Doppler tracing to measure the mass of the target bodies.