NASA's asteroid hunter Lucy soars into sky with diamonds
CTV
A NASA spacecraft named Lucy rocketed into the sky with diamonds Saturday 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 orbital journey spanning nearly 4 billion miles (6.3 billion kilometres).
"I'm just elated," NASA's associate administrator, Robert Cabana, said following liftoff. "This is the coolest darn mission."
Lucy is named after the 3.2 million-year-old skeletal remains of a human ancestor found in Ethiopia nearly a half-century ago.
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A Quebec zoo took advantage of last Monday's total solar eclipse to study the behaviours of some of its animals. The zoo's research and conservation department was approached by an astrophysics professor from the Université du Québec à Montréal about taking part in an animal behaviour study and collecting data on how they reacted during the rare phenomenon.