NASA’s Mission to Jupiter Has Nothing to Do With Jupiter

Imagine Jupiter and its little asteroids as cosmic Halloween decor on the solar system’s front stoop. The planet itself—swirly, stormy, the largest in the solar system—is the pumpkin, while the tiny asteroids that accompany it are kind of like funky-shaped gourds, one cluster in front and the other behind. The pumpkin and these gourds have been on display like this for billions of years, strung together by a quirk of gravity, tracing the same loop around the sun.

Earlier this month, NASA a spacecraft named Lucy to admire this autumnal space display. Spacecraft have visited Jupiter before, but none has ever gone to inspect the planet’s little asteroids up close. After (more on that later), but NASA seems confident that the spacecraft will one day make it to these distant, mysterious objects.