7 facts about the University of Hawaiʻi's new asteroid mission
HONOLULU (KHON2) — Since the beginning of time, humans have looked up at the stars and dreamed of exploring the universe.
This dream is becoming more of a reality with each passing year and as scientists hone their skills.
One exciting project currently happening is NASA's Lucy mission, which is on a quest to learn more about asteroids orbiting near Jupiter known as Trojans. These asteroids are thought to be ancient remnants from the early solar system.
And the University of Hawaii has been selected to be a part of this history making adventure.
Here are some facts to know:
1. Emily Costello joins the team: Emily Costello who is a planetary scientist at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa is one of eight scientists who have been selected to help NASA study these asteroids. Her work focuses on understanding how meteor impacts have shaped the surfaces of these ancient space rocks. She is joining seven other scientists affiliated with universities and research companies from around the world.
'Impacts are a pervasive geological process on small bodies, so it is critical that we accurately decipher how these impacts shape the formation and evolution of the asteroids,' said Costello, who is a researcher at the Hawaiʻi Institute of Geophysics and Planetology in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST).
2. Trojan asteroids: The Jupiter Trojan asteroids are a group of small bodies that share an orbit with Jupiter around the Sun. These asteroids are important because they may hold clues about the early days of our solar system. The newly selected scientists will work closely with NASA and other mission team members to study the L4 Trojans during key flybys in 2027 and 2028.3. The role of impacts: Meteor impacts have changed the surface of these asteroids over billions of years. Costello will help NASA understand how these impacts mix up the surface layers and influence these asteroids' evolution.
'The history written and rewritten by impacts will influence the interpretation of all observations by the Lucy mission's scientific instruments that view Trojan surfaces,' Costello said. 'So, it's thrilling to be able to help interpret the first ever close-up look at these likely ancient asteroids.'
4. A 12-year mission: The Lucy spacecraft is on its way to study the L4 Trojan swarm. Launched in 2021, it will spend 12 years exploring the Trojan asteroids and other nearby space rocks. It will be the first mission to visit this group of asteroids and will help scientists gather valuable data about the formation of our solar system. Along the way, it will use gravity from Earth to help speed up its journey!
5. Named after a fossil: The mission is named after 'Lucy', the famous Ethiopian fossil of an early human ancestor, which helped scientists learn more about human evolution. Just like the fossil, the Lucy mission will help us understand the history of our solar system.
6. Groundbreaking mission: This group of scientists is the first selection of participating scientists for the Lucy mission, and they'll help guide the spacecraft's investigations over the next decade.
7. Joint endeavor: The Lucy mission is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and Lockheed Martin Space built and operates the spacecraft.
NASA's Lucy mission is a groundbreaking journey, and the L4 Trojans Participating Scientist Program plays a big role in answering the many questions scientists have about these mysterious space rocks.
This mission is truly a team effort, with scientists from around the world working together to answer some of space's most pressing questions!
You can click , and to learn more.
Get news on the go with KHON 2GO, KHON's morning podcast, every morning at 8
Their research will help uncover important information about the history and formation of our solar system. They will stay involved until 2030 and will continue to analyze the data Lucy sends back.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


CNN
7 hours ago
- CNN
New tech reveals never-before-seen details in solar corona
A breakthrough in adaptive optics technology captured the clearest images to date of the sun's corona. The incredible resolution of the new images could provide new insights on some of the mysteries surrounding our star.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
NASA orbiter saw something astonishing peek through Martian clouds
NASA's longest-running Mars mission has sent back an unprecedented side view of a massive volcano rising above the Red Planet, just before dawn. On May 2, as sunlight crept over the Martian horizon, the Odyssey spacecraft captured Arsia Mons, a towering, long-extinct volcano, puncturing a glowing band of greenish haze in the planet's upper atmosphere. The 12-mile-high volcano — nearly twice the height of Mauna Loa in Hawaii — punctures a veil of fog, emerging like a monument to the planet's ancient past. The space snapshot is both visually arresting and scientifically enlightening. "We picked Arsia Mons hoping we would see the summit poke above the early morning clouds," said Jonathon Hill, who leads Odyssey's camera operations at Arizona State University, in a statement, "and it didn't disappoint." SEE ALSO: An enormous Martian cloud returns every spring. Scientists found out why. Arsia Mons sits at the southern end of a towering trio of volcanoes called the Tharsis Montes. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech To get this view, Odyssey had to do something it wasn't originally built for. The orbiter, which has been flying around Mars since 2001, usually points its camera straight down to map the planet's surface. But over the past two years, scientists have begun rotating the spacecraft 90 degrees to look toward the horizon. That adjustment allows NASA to study how dust and ice clouds change over the seasons. Though the image is still an aerial view, the vantage point is of the horizon, similar to how astronauts can see Earth's horizon 250 miles above the planet on the International Space Station. From that altitude, Earth doesn't fill their entire view — there's enough distance and perspective for them to see the planet's curved edge meeting the blackness of space. Odyssey flies above Mars at about the same altitude. Arsia Mons sits at the southern end of a towering trio of volcanoes called the Tharsis Montes. The Tharsis region is home to the largest volcanoes in the solar system. The lack of plate tectonics on the Red Planet allowed them to grow many times larger than those anywhere on Earth. Together, they dominate the Martian landscape and are sometimes covered in clouds, especially in the early hours. But not just any clouds — these are made of water ice, a different breed than the planet's more common carbon dioxide clouds. Arsia Mons is the cloudiest of the three. Scientists have recently studied a particular, localized cloud formation that occurs over the mountain, dubbed the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud. The transient feature, streaking 1,100 miles over southern Mars, lasts only about three hours in the morning during spring before vanishing in the warm sunlight. It's formed by strong winds being forced up the mountainside. The cloudy canopy on display in Odyssey's new image, according to NASA, is called the aphelion cloud belt. This widespread seasonal system drapes across the planet's equator when Mars is farthest from the sun. This is Odyssey's fourth side image since 2023, and it is the first to show a volcano breaking through the clouds. "We're seeing some really significant seasonal differences in these horizon images," said Michael D. Smith, a NASA planetary scientist, in a statement. "It's giving us new clues to how Mars' atmosphere evolves over time."
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
NASA's Parker Solar Probe spots powerful magnetic explosion aimed at the sun's surface
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. While making a death-defying dive through the sun's atmosphere, NASA's Parker Solar Probe has directly recorded a powerful plasma explosion heading toward our star's surface in unprecedented detail. Parker's new measurements found protons with about 1000 times greater energy than expected and a plasma jet shooting toward the sun, not away from it. Parker was uniquely positioned between the sun and the particles' source, allowing scientists to easily figure out where they came from. These findings indicate that the complexity and strength of tangles in the sun's magnetic field can accelerate charged particles to much greater speeds than expected from the field's strength alone. The sunward plasma jet was caused by "magnetic reconnection" in the sun's atmosphere — the explosive process in which magnetic fields fracture and reconnect. The powerful phenomenon transforms energy stored in the sun's magnetic field into energy that accelerates the solar wind — the constant stream of charged particles that the sun blasts across the solar system. Understanding magnetic reconnection is critical for making better predictions about space weather, which is driven by the solar wind and other energetic outbursts from our star. Space weather is a primary suspect for what stripped away Mars' atmosphere, turning it from a habitable planet into an icy desert wasteland. On Earth, space weather can trigger geomagnetic storms that cause blackouts, damage satellites, interfere with radio and GPS signals, and even put astronauts at risk. On the bright side, it also gives Earth its signature glorious auroras. The sun's magnetic field is extremely powerful, complex and dynamic. Space weather predictions require complicated computer simulations based on equations that describe how magnetic fields behave — but the sun is so large and convoluted that these equations will always be approximations. To improve the models' accuracy, scientists must collect extremely detailed measurements of the sun. This is where the Parker Solar Probe comes in. The Parker Solar Probe is the first mission to fly into the sun's upper atmosphere, called the corona. It has been directly measuring magnetic fields and particles in and around the corona in unprecedented detail, providing scientific insight into the heliosphere (the sun's atmosphere, which encompasses the entire solar system in a massive, elongated bubble). Related: NASA's daredevil solar spacecraft survives 2nd close flyby of our sun "These findings indicate that magnetic reconnection … is an important source of energetic particles in the near-Sun solar wind," lead study author Mihir Desai, director of the Southwest Research Institute's Department of Space Research, said in a statement. "Everywhere there are magnetic fields there will be magnetic reconnection. But the Sun's magnetic fields are much stronger near the star, so there's a lot more stored energy to be released." Understanding the workings of magnetic reconnection events could help scientists better predict harmful space weather, the researchers said. RELATED STORIES —New 8K-resolution photos of the sun show off incredible details of raging sunspots —Space photo of the week: Pink 'raindrops' on the sun captured in greatest detail ever —Powerful Mother's Day geomagnetic storm created radio-disrupting bubbles in Earth's upper atmosphere "Reports from the American Meteorological Society indicated that the powerful solar events in May 2024 wreaked havoc with farmers when extreme geomagnetic storms disrupted the precise GPS-guided navigation systems used to plant, fertilize and harvest rows of seeds, causing an estimated loss of up to $500 million in earning potential," Desai said. "Parker's access to this new data is critical, particularly as we remain in the midst of a very active solar cycle." The latest measurements of magnetic reconnection, reported in a paper published May 29 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, are one of many new discoveries Parker has made. In 2023, over 700 peer-reviewed scientific papers were published using data collected in the probe's first four years of operation, and there are still many more discoveries to be made. The spacecraft completed its second ultra-close flyby of the sun on March 22, zooming within 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) of the sun's surface — matching its own record from December 2024.