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TOKYO – Scientists in Japan said they were “speechless” when they saw how much asteroid dust was inside a capsule launched by the Hayabusa-2 space probe on an unprecedented mission.
The Japanese probe collected surface dust and pristine material last year from the asteroid Ryugu, some 300 million kilometers away, during two daring phases of its six-year mission.
This month he dropped a capsule containing the samples, which created a fireball as it entered Earth’s atmosphere and landed in the Australian desert before being transported to Japan.
Scientists from Japan’s JAXA space agency removed the screws from the capsule’s inner container on Tuesday, finding a small amount of asteroid dust on the outer shell.
“When we actually opened it, I was speechless. It was more than we expected and there was so much that it really impressed me,” said JAXA scientist Hirotaka Sawada.
READ: ‘Sand-like’ black asteroid dust found in Japan probe box
“They were not fine particles like dust, but there were a lot of samples that were several millimeters wide.”
Scientists hope the material will shed light on the formation of the universe and perhaps offer clues to how life began on Earth.
Scientists have not yet revealed whether the material inside is equal to, or perhaps even greater than, the 0.1 gram they had said they hoped to discover.
Seiichiro Watanabe, a Hayabusa project scientist and professor at Nagoya University, said he was nonetheless excited.
“There are many (samples) and they seem to contain a lot of organic matter,” he said.
“So I hope we can find out a lot about how organic substances have developed in Ryugu’s parent body.”
