NASA on Saturday launched its new LUCY spacecraft in a bid to explore a group of ancient asteroids that surround Jupiter.

The liftoff was quite a sight:

The ship will orbit the Sun for the next three years as part of a gravitational slingshot to boost it toward Jupiter:

Lucy will unfurl giant solar arrays 24 feet in diameter about one hour after launch. And it will circle the sun near Earth for three years to use the planet's gravity in two speed boosts to eventually spiral out through the solar system...

The goal, according to NASA, is to learn about the mysterious dark Trojan asteroids that travel ahead and behind Jupiter in its orbit about 400 million miles from Earth's orbit. The space agency believes the Trojans date to the beginning of the solar system.

"We've learned that the Trojans are not related to Jupiter and its moons, except that they were captured by Jupiter's gravity," Keith Noll, NASA Lucy project scientist, said in a press conference broadcast Thursday from nearby Kennedy Space Center.

"So, the goal of Lucy is really to try to understand how and where the Trojans came from, but we're pretty sure it's not from anywhere near Jupiter," Noll said.

Very cool. Good luck, Lucy!