NASA's OSIRIS-Rex Mission Update: Spacecraft Finds No Earth-Trojan Asteroids In Fourth Lagrangian Area

NASA announced Friday that its OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft -- bound for the near-Earth asteroid Bennu -- had successfully scanned part of its surrounding space for Earth-Trojan asteroids. Although no such asteroids were discovered, the scan demonstrated that a key instrument on board the spacecraft was functioned much better than expected. "The Earth-Trojan Asteroid Search was a significant success for the OSIRIS-REx mission," OSIRIS-REx Principal Investigator Dante Lauretta from the University of Arizona, Tucson, said in a statement. "In this first practical exercise of the mission's science operations, the mission team learned so much about this spacecraft's capabilities and flight operations that we are now ahead of the game for when we get to Bennu." Scientists believe that Earth-Trojan asteroids exist in the Earth-Sun Lagrangian points L4 and L5, which are stable points 60 degrees in front and 60 degrees behind Earth in its orbit.