Astrophysicist Eric Lagadec relayed the message and encourages as many people as possible to participate in this operation around the Lucy space mission.
« Your mission, if you accept it this October 23, at 4 a.m.: an asteroid named Eurybate, which is 60 km in diameter and 600 million km from us, will pass in front of a star for 10 seconds through the France. This is called concealment.
« It’s a bit like an eclipse, but instead of the moon passing in front of the sun, we have an asteroid passing in front of a star. The band of visibility is very small, and if we measure the duration of the occultation, we can know the size of the asteroid (…) By knowing from where it was observed or not, we can also better know the trajectory of the asteroid. (But don’t worry, this one isn’t hurtling towards Earth) (…) This asteroid will be flown over by NASA’s Lucy mission, launched on October 16, 2021, which will fly over the asteroid… in August 2027! To prepare for this flyby, NASA needs to know more regarding this asteroid “. And count on you…
To follow on the Twitter account of astrophysicist Eric Lagadec.
