- 3D Muscle Reconstruction Reveals 3.2 Million-Year-Old “Lucy” Could Stand As Erect as Modern Humans SciTechDaily
- How a 3.2-million-year-old human relative named Lucy walked CNN
- 3.2 million-year-old human ancestor ‘Lucy’ had massive leg muscles to stand up straight and climb trees Livescience.com
- 3D muscle reconstruction shows 3.2 million-year-old “Lucy” walked upright Ars Technica
- 3D muscle reconstruction reveals 3.2 million-year-old ancestor walked upright Interesting Engineering
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: Lucy
Tom Hanks Says Robert Zemeckis Shot ‘Forrest Gump’ Scenes Like ‘I Love Lucy’ to Combat His Exhaustion – IndieWire
- Tom Hanks Says Robert Zemeckis Shot ‘Forrest Gump’ Scenes Like ‘I Love Lucy’ to Combat His Exhaustion IndieWire
- We all have movies we hate, even me: Tom Hanks’ humble confession | Onmanorama Onmanorama
- “That was an incredibly important movie for me”: Tom Hanks is Heartbroken for Fans Ignoring His $183M Comic-Book Adapted Movie by James Bond Director FandomWire
- Tom Hanks Reveals Why Sleepless In Seattle Made Him ‘Cranky,’ And How He Changed His Attitude CinemaBlend
- Tom Hanks On How That Thing You Do Became A Fan-Favorite BuzzFeed
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Lucy Liu looks stunning as she steps out at the Shazam! Fury of the Gods premiere in Toronto – Daily Mail
- Lucy Liu looks stunning as she steps out at the Shazam! Fury of the Gods premiere in Toronto Daily Mail
- Lucy Liu Recalls Growing Up a Comic Book Fan: ‘Something Very Nostalgic About’ Being in Shazam! Sequel PEOPLE
- Shazam Fury Of The Gods Cast Plays Who’s Who BuzzFeed
- Rachel Zegler Delivers Whimsical Glamour in Sheer Floral Dress & 6-Inch Heels at ‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ UK Screening Footwear News
- Shazam! Fury of the Gods: Ross Butler, Grace Caroline Currey, and D.J. Cotrona on the Joys of Being Superheroes CBR – Comic Book Resources
- View Full Coverage on Google News
NASA’s Record-Breaking Lucy Spacecraft Has a New Asteroid Target
Artist’s concept of NASA’s Lucy spacecraft at an asteroid. Credit: NASA
“There are millions of asteroids in the main asteroid belt,” said Raphael Marschall, Lucy collaborator at the Nice Observatory in France, who identified asteroid 1999 VD57 as an object of special interest for Lucy. “I selected 500,000 asteroids with well-defined orbits to see if Lucy might be traveling close enough to get a good look at any of them, even from a distance. This asteroid really stood out. Lucy’s trajectory as originally designed will take it within 40,000 miles of the asteroid, at least three times closer than the next closest asteroid.”
As the NASA Lucy spacecraft travels through the inner edge of the main asteroid belt in the Fall of 2023, the spacecraft will fly by the small, as-of-yet unnamed, asteroid (152830) 1999 VD57. This graphic shows a top-down view of the Solar System indicating the spacecraft’s trajectory shortly before the November 1 encounter. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
The Lucy team realized that, by adding a small maneuver, the spacecraft would be able to get an even closer look at this asteroid. So, on January 24, the team officially added it to Lucy’s tour as an engineering test of the spacecraft’s pioneering terminal tracking system. This new system solves a long-standing problem for flyby missions: during a spacecraft’s approach to an asteroid, it is quite difficult to determine exactly how far the spacecraft is from the asteroid, and exactly which way to point the cameras.
“In the past, most flyby missions have accounted for this uncertainty by taking a lot of images of the region where the asteroid might be, meaning low efficiency and lots of images of blank space,” said Hal Levison, Lucy principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute Boulder, Colorado office. “Lucy will be the first flyby mission to employ this innovative and complex system to automatically track the asteroid during the encounter. This novel system will allow the team to take many more images of the target.”
It turns out that 1999 VD57 provides an excellent opportunity to validate this never-before-flown procedure. The geometry of this encounter—particularly the angle that the spacecraft approaches the asteroid relative to the Sun—is very similar to the mission’s planned Trojan asteroid encounters. This allows the team to carry out a dress rehearsal under similar conditions well in advance of the spacecraft’s main scientific targets.
This asteroid was not identified as a target earlier because it is extremely small. In fact, 1999 VD57, estimated to be a mere 0.4 miles (700 m) in size, will be the smallest main belt asteroid ever visited by a spacecraft. It is much more similar in size to the near-Earth asteroids visited by recent NASA missions OSIRIS-REx and DART than to previously visited main belt asteroids.
The Lucy team will carry out a series of maneuvers starting in early May 2023 to place the spacecraft on a trajectory that will pass approximately 280 miles (450 km) from this small asteroid.
Lucy’s principal investigator is based out of the Boulder, Colorado branch of Southwest Research Institute, headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and safety and mission assurance. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft. Lucy is the 13th mission in NASA’s Discovery Program. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Discovery Program for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
NASA Pauses Attempts to Fix Lucy’s Pesky Solar Array
NASA is taking a break from attempts to unfurl a finicky solar array on the Lucy spacecraft, claiming that the probe is too cold and that efforts at deploying the array could be more fruitful when Lucy is closer to the Sun in December 2024.
After launching in October 2021, one of the spacecraft’s two 24-foot-wide (7-meter-wide) solar arrays, which supplies power to Lucy, failed to fully unfurl, remaining stuck in an unlatched position. While NASA has made previous attempts to fully deploy the array, the agency announced in a blog post that the Lucy team will be suspending attempts to completely unfurl the array, saying the spacecraft is too cold.
That said, NASA’s not sweating the issue, and estimated in a blog post that the array is 98% deployed and will be able to withstand the remainder of Lucy’s 12-year mission to visit Jupiter’s mysterious Trojan asteroids, which orbit both ahead and behind the gas giant.
More on this story: 7 Things to Know About NASA’s First Mission to the Jupiter Trojan Asteroids
“Ground-based testing indicated that the deployment attempts were most productive while the spacecraft was warmer, closer to the Sun,” NASA communication officer Erin Morton wrote in the post last week. “As the spacecraft is currently 123 million miles (197 million kilometers) from the Sun (1.3 times farther from the Sun than the Earth) and moving away at 20,000 mph (35,000 km/hr), the team does not expect further deployment attempts to be beneficial under present conditions.”
NASA noticed issues with the solar array shortly after the mission’s launch, and deduced that it was a loss in tension in a lanyard used to unfurl the circular array. Lucy is now hurtling away from the Sun, getting colder and colder, but will return to Earth for a gravity assist in December 2024. At this time, the Lucy team hopes that spacecraft will be warm enough to try again.
In the meantime, the team behind Lucy will be collecting data on the misbehaving solar array to see how it operates at its slightly incapacitated state as Lucy continues its mission to visit Jupiter’s Trojan asteroid clusters.
G/O Media may get a commission
Up to $100 credit
Samsung Reserve
Reserve the next gen Samsung device
All you need to do is sign up with your email and boom: credit for your preorder on a new Samsung device.
More: NASA’s Moon-Bound Lunar Flashlight Is Experiencing Thruster Issues
NASA Probe Captures Haunting Images of Earth and Moon
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft got its first view of the Earth-Moon system one year after launching from its home planet to explore a distant swarm of asteroids. The spacecraft captured beautiful, and somewhat daunting, images of Earth and its natural satellite as it whizzed past for a gravitational assist.
The Lucy spacecraft is currently on a six-year journey to Jupiter to study the Trojan asteroids, two groups of rocky bodies that lead and follow Jupiter as it orbits the Sun.
As part of its convoluted journey, Lucy flew by Earth on October 15 for the first of three gravity assist maneuvers to place the spacecraft on a new trajectory beyond the orbit of Mars. During its flyby, Lucy took a few photos of Earth and the Moon to calibrate the spacecraft’s instruments. NASA released the images this week—and they’re really great, if not a bit goosebump-inducing. What’s more, they’re a sneak preview into the capabilities of the spacecraft and the kinds of views can expect of the Trojan asteroids.
The first image was taken on October 13, when Lucy was 890,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) away from Earth. The spacecraft was still making its way towards our planet for the close flyby and was able to capture the Earth-Moon system in the same frame.
The Moon can be seen very faintly along the left side of the image, separated from its host planet by about 238,900 miles (384,400 kilometers). This view of the distant pair defies our perception of the Moon that we see in our night skies, which appears relatively close to us. Instead, the image reveals how far the Moon really is from Earth, and the eerie darkness of space between them.
As Lucy got closer to Earth, it captured this closer look at the planet on October 15 at a distance of 385,000 miles (620,000 kilometers). This view of the Earth shows Hadar, Ethiopia—the place of origin for the 3.2 million-year-old hominid fossil that the spacecraft was named after.
The Lucy fossils provided valuable insights into human evolution, the same way the Trojan asteroids could help scientists piece together the origin story of the early solar system and how it evolved over time.
Roughly eight hours after it flew past Earth, Lucy got snugly with the Moon. The spacecraft captured this closeup image of the lunar surface on October 16 at a distance of around 140,000 miles (230,000 km) from the surface.
The image, taken with Lucy’s L’LORRI (Lucy LOng Range Reconnaissance Imager) high-resolution greyscale camera, was put together by combining ten separate two millisecond exposures of the same frame to increase its quality, with each pixel representing about 0.8 miles (1.3 kilometers).
This mosaic of the Moon was created from five separate one millisecond exposures, with each pixel representing about 0.7 miles (1.2 kilometers). The uppermost area of the image was taken at an earlier time than the bottom, resulting in the incongruous view of this lunar area. The image was taken about eight hours after Lucy’s flyby of Earth, when the spacecraft was around 140,000 miles (230,000 km) away from the Moon.
In another closeup image of the Moon, Lucy observed the side of the lunar surface most familiar to us on Earth. Flying between the Earth and Moon, the spacecraft captured the lava-filled impact basin Mare Imbrium. The lower-right area of the image shows the Apennine mountain range—the landing site for the Apollo 15 mission in 1971.
After Lucy bid farewell to Earth, its new trajectory placed it on a two-year orbit around the Sun. In two years, Lucy will return to Earth for yet another gravity assist. From there, the spacecraft will still have about three years to go before reaching its first target, asteroid Donaldjohanson. Later in August 2027, Lucy will begin its Trojan tour by visiting Eurybates and its binary partner Queta, followed by Polymele and its binary partner, Leucus, Orus, and the binary pair Patroclus and Menoetius.
More: Astronomers Chase Shadows From Jupiter’s Mysterious Trojan Asteroids
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft says hello to Earth on its way to study Trojan asteroids
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured this image (which has been cropped) of the Earth on Oct 15, 2022, as a part of an instrument calibration sequence at a distance of 380,000 miles (620,000 km). The upper left of the image includes a view of Hadar, Ethiopia, home to Lucy, the 3.2 million-year-old human ancestor fossil for which the spacecraft was named. (Credits: NASA/Goddard/SwRI)
One year after launching, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft zoomed by Earth capturing images of our home planet as it continued a 12-year journey to study asteroids considered fossils of our solar system.
Lucy will perform three Earth flybys, each providing a gravity-assisting boost into deep space to study a group of objects known as Trojan asteroids. These asteroids are made up of the same materials as the giant planets of our solar system: Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus.
Associated with Jupiter because the asteroids are on the same orbital path, two groups of Trojan asteroids zoom ahead of Jupiter and trail behind the gas giant.
HOW TO WATCH FOX WEATHER
Lucy was named after the fossils found in Ethiopia in 1974. The skeleton, one of human’s oldest known ancestors, was named after The Beatles’ song “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” after a night of celebrating the discovery while listening to the band’s songs.
United Launch Alliance successfully delivered Lucy to orbit just before sunrise on Oct. 16, 2021, launching the Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
According to NASA, Lucy skimmed by Earth a year later, coming as close as 220 miles above the surface. This maneuver shoots Lucy into space on a two-year orbit before the spacecraft returns for a second gravity assist. The spacecraft will encounter its first Trojan asteroids in 2027 before a final slingshot by Earth in 2030.
The close encounter was a chance for Lucy’s team on Earth to calibrate the spacecraft’s instruments by photographing the Earth and the moon. The images were taken by Lucy’s Terminal Tracking Camera (T2CAM) system, a pair of cameras operated by Lockheed Martin that will later track the Trojan asteroids during Lucy’s encounters.
On October 13, 2022, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured this image of the Earth and the moon from a distance of 890,000 miles with Lucy’s Terminal Tracking Camera (T2CAM) system, a pair of identical cameras that are responsible for tracking asteroids. The T2CAM system was designed, built and tested by Malin Space Science Systems; Lockheed Martin Integrated the T2CAMs onto the Lucy spacecraft and operates them. (Image: Credit: NASA/Goddard/SwRI)
Lucy’s body is about the size of a large deep freezer and has two huge solar wings spread out 24 feet each to power the mission. However, shortly after launching, NASA engineers discovered one of Lucy’s wings did not open properly, and teams had to troubleshoot the issue. The wing is now about 355 degrees out of 360 degrees open, but even the tiny difference meant changing Lucy’s game plan for the Earth slingshot.
“In the original plan, Lucy was actually going to pass about 30 miles closer to the Earth,” Lucy project manager Rich Burns, with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said. “However, when it became clear that we might have to execute this flyby with one of the solar arrays unlatched, we chose to use a bit of our fuel reserves so that the spacecraft passes the Earth at a slightly higher altitude, reducing the disturbance from the atmospheric drag on the spacecraft’s solar arrays.”
Lucy’s trajectory brought the spacecraft through a crowded area in low-Earth orbit full of satellites and debris. The team prepared two different maneuvers in case Lucy was at risk of colliding with a piece of space junk. About 12 hours before the closest approach, the spacecraft executed one of the maneuvers to avoid any potentially catastrophic collisions.
A graphic shows the distribution of space debris around Earth. Credits: European Space Agency
It just so happened Lucy’s photo of Earth includes Hadar, Ethiopia, which is home to the 3.2-million-year-old fossils for which the spacecraft was named.
Lucy’s flyby of Earth was closer than the International Space Station orbit and was even visible to people down on Earth in Western Australia and parts of the U.S.
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft buzzes Earth on first anniversary of launch on mission to explore around Jupiter
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft passed over the Earth’s atmosphere this morning on the first anniversary of its launch.
It was lower than the International Space Station – just 220 miles above the Earth’s surface – passing through satellites and debris and using procedures to avoid any potential collision.
Scientists also had to account for atmospheric drag when designing the flyby.
The satellite was first visible to skywatchers in Western Australia before disappearing into the Earth’s shadow.
NASA, SPACEX CREW-4 MAKES RE-ENTRY NEAR FLORIDA COAST
The launch clock, showing a digital display for NASA’s Lucy spacecraft for a mission to study the Trojan asteroids in the outer solar system, as the Kennedy Space Center press site prepares for launch from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. October 15, 2021.
(REUTERS/Steve Nesius)
The 12-year-long mission, which launch on Oct. 16 of last year, is the first mission to the Jupiter asteroids.
The asteroids are in orbits around the sun and are the same distance as Jupiter.
NASA said the first gravity assist will place Lucy on a new trajectory for a two-year orbit, before it returns for another assist that gives Lucy the energy to cross the main asteroid belt.
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with the Lucy spacecraft aboard is seen in this 2 minute and 30 second exposure photograph as it launches from Space Launch Complex 41, Saturday, Oct. 16, 2021, at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
(Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls)
NASA’S DART MISSION SUCCESSFULLY HITS ASTEROID INTO NEW ORBIT
Lucy will observe the asteroid Donaldjohanson before traveling into the Trojan asteroids.
The spacecraft will pass Eurybates, Queta, Polymele, Leucus and Orus.
A close-up view of NASA’s Lucy spacecraft secured on a rotation stand inside the Astrotech Space Operations Facility in Titusville, Florida, on Sept. 1, 2021. Lucy is scheduled to launch no earlier than Saturday, Oct. 16, on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 rocket from Launch Pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
(NASA/Glenn Benson)
Lucy’s third gravity assist is targeted for 2030 which will send it near the Patroclus-Menoetius binary asteroid pair in the trailing Trojan asteroid swarm.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The agency noted that it would use Lucy’s images of the Earth and moon as it flies by to calibrate its instruments.
NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft About To Sling-Shot Past Earth
On October 16, 2022, Lucy will fly by the Earth like a partner in a swing dance, boosting its speed and elongating its orbit around the Sun. At 7:04 am, Eastern Time, Lucy will make its closest approach at just 219 miles above the planet: lower than the International Space Station. This exceptionally close shave will increase its velocity by four-and-a-half miles per second, setting Lucy on track to gain even more speed when it returns to Earth for its second gravity assist in December 2024. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
This gravity assist will place Lucy on a new trajectory for a two-year orbit, at which time it will return to Earth for a second gravity assist. This second assist will give Lucy the energy it needs to cross the main asteroid belt, where it will observe asteroid Donaldjohanson, and then travel into the leading Trojan asteroid swarm. There, Lucy will fly past six Trojan asteroids: Eurybates and its satellite Queta, Polymele and its yet unnamed satellite, Leucus, and Orus. Lucy will then return to Earth for a third gravity assist in 2030 to re-target the spacecraft for a rendezvous with the Patroclus-Menoetius binary asteroid pair in the trailing Trojan asteroid swarm.
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will make an exceptionally close flyby of Earth on October 16, 2022. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
For this first gravity assist, Lucy will appear to approach Earth from the direction of the Sun. While this means that observers on Earth will not be able to see Lucy in the days before the event, Lucy will be able to take images of the nearly full Earth and Moon. Mission scientists will use these images to calibrate the instruments.
Lucy’s trajectory will bring the spacecraft very close to Earth, lower even than the International Space Station (ISS), which means that Lucy will pass through a region full of earth-orbiting satellites and debris. To ensure the safety of the spacecraft, NASA developed procedures to anticipate any potential hazard and, if needed, to execute a small maneuver to avoid a collision.
“The Lucy team has prepared two different maneuvers,” says Coralie Adam, Lucy deputy navigation team chief from KinetX Aerospace in Simi Valley, California. “If the team detects that Lucy is at risk of colliding with a satellite or piece of debris, then–12 hours before the closest approach to Earth –the spacecraft will execute one of these, altering the time of closest approach by either two or four seconds. This is a small correction, but it is enough to avoid a potentially catastrophic collision.”
Illustration of the Lucy spacecraft near a large asteroid with Jupiter visible in the distant background. Credit: Southwest Research Institute
Lucy will be passing the Earth at such a low altitude that the team had to include the effect of atmospheric drag when designing this flyby. Lucy’s large solar arrays increase this effect.
“In the original plan, Lucy was actually going to pass about 30 miles closer to the Earth,” says Rich Burns, Lucy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “However, when it became clear that we might have to execute this flyby with one of the solar arrays unlatched, we chose to use a bit of our fuel reserves so that the spacecraft passes the Earth at a slightly higher altitude, reducing the disturbance from the atmospheric drag on the spacecraft’s solar arrays.”
At around 6:55 a.m. EDT, Lucy will first be visible to observers on the ground in Western Australia (6:55 p.m. for those observers). Lucy will quickly pass overhead, clearly visible to the naked eye for a few minutes before disappearing at 7:02 a.m. EDT as the spacecraft passes into the Earth’s shadow. Lucy will continue over the Pacific Ocean in darkness and emerge from the Earth’s shadow at 7:26 a.m. EDT. If the clouds cooperate, skywatchers in the western United States should be able to get a view of Lucy with the aid of binoculars.
The Lucy trajectory during the Earth flyby seen from above the Earth’s North pole, a red dot every 10 minutes. Location at some key times indicated in white. Credit: SWRI
“The last time we saw the spacecraft, it was being enclosed in the payload fairing in Florida,” said Hal Levison. He is the Lucy principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) Boulder, Colorado office. “It is exciting that we will be able to stand here in Colorado and see the spacecraft again. And this time Lucy will be in the sky.”
Lucy will then rapidly recede from the Earth’s vicinity, passing by the Moon and taking a few more calibration images before continuing out into interplanetary space.
“I’m especially excited by the final few images that Lucy will take of the Moon,” said John Spencer, acting deputy project scientist at SwRI. “Counting craters to understand the collisional history of the Trojan asteroids is key to the science that Lucy will carry out, and this will be the first opportunity to calibrate Lucy’s ability to detect craters by comparing it to previous observations of the Moon by other space missions.”
Ride-along view of Lucy’s first Earth gravity assist (EGA). The camera follows Lucy as the spacecraft approaches the sunlit side of Earth before crossing into Earth’s shadow as it slingshots around the planet. Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
The public is invited to join the #WaveToLucy social media campaign by posting images of themselves waving toward the spacecraft and tagging the @NASASolarSystem account. Additionally, if you are in an area where Lucy will be visible, take a photograph of Lucy and post it to social media with the #SpotTheSpacecraft hashtag. Instructions for observing Lucy from your location are available here.
Hal Levison of Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), in the Boulder Colorado office is the principal investigator. SwRI, headquartered in San Antonio, also leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. NASA Goddard provides overall mission management, systems engineering and the safety and mission assurance for Lucy. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado built the spacecraft, principally designed the orbital trajectory and is providing flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the Lucy spacecraft. Lucy is the thirteenth mission in NASA’s Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Accused killer Lucy Letby told mom, ‘Trust me, I’m a nurse’
Accused UK serial killer nurse Lucy Letby was “interrupted” as she murdered a baby by the child’s distressed mom — but tricked her by saying, “Trust me, I’m a nurse,” prosecutors said Tuesday.
The mom had found Letby, 32, with her bloodied son the night before he died in August 2015 — and the day before the nurse also tried to kill the child’s twin brother, Manchester Crown Court heard.
“We say that [the mom] interrupted Lucy Letby who was attacking [her baby son], although she did not realize it at the time,” prosecutor Nick Johnson told the court, according to The Independent.
The baby, identified as Child E, was “acutely distressed and bleeding from his mouth” after Letby allegedly injected air into his bloodstream Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester, the court heard. However, the nurse told the mom the blood was just from a stomach tube irritating her newborn’s throat, the trial heard.
“Trust me, I’m a nurse,” Letby told the mother, according to Johnson.
The mom then left her dying newborn after being “fobbed off by Lucy Letby,” he said.
Child E died in the early hours after losing more blood than one medical official said he’d ever witnessed from a baby, the trial heard. Letby made “fraudulent” nursing notes which were “false, misleading and designed to cover her tracks,” the prosecutor said.
The next day, she then tried to also kill the dead baby’s twin brother, Child F, this time by poisoning him by injecting insulin, the court heard.
Negligence was ruled out because no other baby on the ward had been prescribed insulin, Johnson said, noting that Letby hung up the bag and was in the room at the time the boy was poisoned.
“The only credible candidate” to be the poisoner was Letby, he said, “the same person who was present at all the unexplained collapses and deaths at the Countess of Chester Hospital on the neo-natal unit.”
The nurse also showed “unusual interest” in the family, repeatedly searching them up on social media — even on Christmas Day, the court heard.
Child E is one of seven children — five boys and two girls — that Letby has been charged with murdering. His twin, Child F, is one of 10 children that she is charged with attempting to murder between June 2015 and June 2016.
She tried to kill some of the them more than once, and at least one was left “severely disabled,” the court heard.
Johnson said all the deaths and collapses were “not naturally occurring or random events.”
“They were deliberate attempts to kill using slightly different methods by which Lucy Letby sought to give the appearance of chance events,” he added.
Letby, from Hereford, has denied all the charges. Her trial is scheduled to continue Wednesday.