NASA spacecraft Lucy soars into sky with lab-grown diamonds
CBC
A NASA spacecraft named Lucy rocketed into the sky with diamonds Saturday morning on a 12-year quest to explore eight asteroids.
Seven of the mysterious space rocks are among swarms of asteroids sharing Jupiter's orbit, thought to be the pristine leftovers of planetary formation.
An Atlas V rocket blasted off before dawn, sending Lucy on a roundabout journey spanning nearly 6.3 billion kilometres. Researchers grew emotional describing the successful launch — lead scientist Hal Levison said it was like witnessing the birth of a child. "Go Lucy!" he urged.
Lucy is named after the 3.2 million-year-old skeletal remains of a human ancestor found in Ethiopia nearly a half-century ago. That discovery got its name from the 1967 Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, prompting NASA to send the spacecraft soaring with band members' lyrics and other luminaries' words of wisdom imprinted on a plaque. The spacecraft also carried a disc made of lab-grown diamonds for one of its science instruments.
In a pre-recorded video for NASA, Beatles drummer Ringo Starr paid tribute to his late colleague John Lennon, who sung the song that inspired all this.
"I'm so excited — Lucy is going back in the sky with diamonds. Johnny will love that," Starr said. "Anyway, if you meet anyone up there, Lucy, give them peace and love from me."
The paleoanthropologist behind the fossil Lucy discovery, Donald Johanson, had goose bumps watching Lucy soar. "I will never look at Jupiter the same ... absolutely mind-expanding," Johanson said. He said he was filled with wonder about this "intersection of our past, our present and our future."
In a small auditorium at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, about a half-dozen cancer patients sit, getting tips on how to deal with hair loss during chemotherapy. It's not an unusual workshop for cancer patients — except that every patient in the room is under 40.
Charles Racette was arranging his father's funeral when he learned his father was not considered a member of Little Black Bear First Nation.
Measles is a respiratory disease caused by a highly contagious virus that's more infectious than influenza, chickenpox or COVID-19.
The chief of the only First Nation to fully own a mining company in Manitoba says he wants the provincial and federal governments to recognize his community's role in boosting critical mineral exploration as a global race to secure those materials heats up.
WARNING: This story mentions suicide.
The chief of the only First Nation to fully own a mining company in Manitoba says he wants the provincial and federal governments to recognize his community's role in boosting critical mineral exploration as a global race to secure those materials heats up.
A new documentary available free on YouTube celebrates a Great Lakes industry that the filmmaker says often flies under the radar, even among those who live on the lakes.
New observations of a small asteroid discovered in December have led astronomers to conclude that the chances of it striking Earth are almost zero, after earlier data had indicated a higher risk of a collision with this space rock about 40 to 90 metres wide.
Palliative care has an image problem.