NASA’s Lucy spaceship will pass in front of a small asteroid this weekend, as it will take the road to an even larger prize: the unexplored asteroids near Jupiter.

It will be the second asteroid meeting for Lucy, which was launched in 2021 on a mission that will lead her to 11 space rocks. Close approaches will help scientists better understand our early solar system when the planets were formed. Asteroids are their ancient remains.

The fact that Lucy will have a meeting with an asteroid will act as a rehearsal for a 2027 rehearsal in 2027 near Jupiter.

The spaceship on Sunday will notice the harmless asteroid known as Donaldjohanson. The meeting will take place 139 million miles (223 million kilometers) from Earth to the main asteroid zone between Mars and Jupiter, so it will take 12 minutes for each piece of data to reach the flight auditors in Colorado.

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft is about to pass near a asteroid about 4 kilometers, just 960 kilometers and at a speed of over 48,000 km/h. Scientists hope to learn more about its shape, which may look like a cord, snowman or even two separate bodies.

The asteroid is believed to have been formed by a huge conflict 150 million years ago.

Paleontologist Donald Johanson, in honor of which he was named asteroid, intends to be located at the Lockheed Martin control center, the company that manufactured and operates the spacecraft, throughout the mission. She discovered Lucy’s fossil in Ethiopia 50 years ago. The spaceship was named after this famous ancestor.

Lucy’s main destination is the Trojan asteroids near Zeus, who will visit from 2027 to 2033.