
NASA's Lucy spacecraft to zoom past asteroid this weekend at 30,000 mph: "We don't know what to expect"
CBSN
NASA's Lucy spacecraft will swoop past a small asteroid this weekend as it makes its way to an even bigger prize: the unexplored swarms of asteroids near Jupiter.
It will be the second asteroid encounter for Lucy, launched in 2021 on a quest that will take it to 11 space rocks. In November 2023, Lucy successfully "phoned home" to NASA after a high-speed encounter with an asteroid called Dinkinesh.
The close approaches should help scientists better understand our early solar system when planets were forming; asteroids are the ancient leftovers.

It's an evocative idea that has long bedeviled scientists: a huge and mysterious planet is lurking in the darkness at the edge of our solar system, evading all our efforts to spot it. Some astronomers say the strange, clustered orbits of icy rocks beyond Neptune indicate that something big is out there, which they have dubbed "Planet Nine."