NASA has sent a spacecraft to examine the asteroids travelling near Jupiter.

The mission is expected to help unlock the mystery of how the solar system was formed. It is being described as a search for the "fossils" of the solar system.

The spacecraft, named Lucy, was launched on Saturday (16 October) from Cape Canaveral in Florida, United States.

The space probe will observe the swarms of asteroids circling within the vast gas envelope in Jupiter's orbit.

Scientists at NASA, the US space agency, say these objects were left over as remnants when the planets formed. The asteroids, known as Trojans, are therefore thought to hold important clues to how the solar system formed.

Source: Samprotik Deshkal. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.