Nasa Lucy mission launch - live: Probe to explore asteroids around Jupiter blasts into space

Nasa has launched a new asteroid mission today to study two large clusters of space rocks around Jupiter, with hopes that the spacecraft’s work will shed light on some of the mysteries of our solar system.

The Lucy mission, named after a fossilised human ancestor whose skeleton gave insight into human evolution, is set to explore a record-breaking number of asteroids over the next 12 years.

Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids, which have been described as “the fossils of planet formation”, could help to reveal information about how our solar system's planets formed 4.5 billion years ago and why they ended up in their current configuration.

NASA has said that no other single mission has been designed to visit as many different objects independently orbiting the sun in the history of space exploration.

10:21 , Conrad Duncan

Hello and welcome to The Independent’s live coverage of NASA’s Lucy mission launch.

Watch live as Nasa's asteroid exploration mission Lucy launches in Florida

10:30 , Conrad Duncan

Nasa’s Lucy mission to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroid belts is set to lift off within minutes from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida this morning.

The mission marks the most extensive asteroid exploration by Nasa to date – and hopes to gather data that will offer new insights into the early formation of the solar system.

You can watch the launch live below:

Watch live as Nasa's asteroid exploration mission Lucy launches in Florida

What is the Lucy mission aiming to do?

10:35 , Conrad Duncan

Nasa’s Lucy probe is a first-of-its-kind mission that aims to study Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids in the hope that the two clusters of space rocks can provide clues to how our solar system’s planets formed.

Lucy will be hurled into space this morning on a 12-year expedition to explore the Trojans, which are named after the warriors of Greek mythology.

Scientists hope the mission’s close-up fly-by of seven Trojans will yield new clues to how the solar system's planets came to be formed some 4.5 billion years ago and what shaped their present configuration.

Nasa says that the asteroids are believed to be rich in carbon compounds and may even provide new insights into the origin of organic materials and life on Earth.

10:39 , Conrad Duncan

BREAKING: Nasa’s Lucy spacecraft has successfully launched into the sky from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida this morning to begin its 12-year quest to explore Jupiter’s asteroids.

10:42 , Conrad Duncan

You can watch the moment below when the Lucy probe successfully launched this morning:

Lucy probe can shed light on how our solar system works, senior official says

10:55 , Conrad Duncan

Studying Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids is important because it could allow scientists to understand how our solar system works, according to one of the key investigators for the Lucy probe.

Cathy Olkin, deputy principal investigator for the mission, told Nasa that the scientific community had been hoping to see the asteroids up close “for a long time” before the spacecraft set off on its 12-year mission earlier today.

“It's really important to understand solar system formation to understand where we came from and how our solar system works,” Ms Olkin said on Saturday morning.

“It used to be that we had a vision that the solar system was a very calm environment and that everything was very stable, but really our recent ideas are that it’s not like that at all.”

You can find her comments in full below:

Scientist who discovered fossil behind Lucy’s name says mission is ‘incredibly exciting’

11:13 , Conrad Duncan

The paleoanthropologist behind the discovery of the fossil that gives Nasa’s Lucy probe its name has said the mission is “incredibly exciting” and has filled him with wonder about the “intersection of our past, our present and our future”.

Donald Johanson, who now works at Arizona State University, led an excavation team in Ethiopia that discovered the Lucy fossil, named after the Beatles song “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”, in 1974.

“That a human ancestor who lived so long ago stimulated a mission which promises to add valuable information about the formation of our solar system is incredibly exciting,” Mr Johanson, who travelled to Cape Canaveral for the launch, said.

11:23 , Conrad Duncan

That’s all from our live coverage of Nasa’s Lucy launch for today - you can find more stories on the latest scientific discoveries on our Science page linked here.