Earth-Based Telescopes Spot NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft

As clouds covered most of Colorado the morning of Oct. 16, 2022, team members from NASA’s Lucy Mission drove to Scottsbluff, Nebraska, in order to catch a glimpse of the spacecraft during its first Earth gravity assist. While Lucy was in Earth’s shadow and therefore not visible at the moment of closest approach, the team managed to capture the spacecraft just moments after it reappeared at 6:26 a.m. CDT (5:26 a.m. EDT). The images were taken with an 11-inch (28 cm) telescope with an approximately 1-degree field of view. The telescope was moved multiple times to track Lucy through the sky. Each frame is marked with the observation time and the distance from the observer to the spacecraft. Learn more about the Lucy mission: Credit: NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Buie/Kretke Music: Ice Crystals by N-10