[ad_1]
Japan’s space agency has recovered a capsule containing the first rock samples from beneath the surface of an asteroid that scientists say could provide clues to the origin of the solar system and life on our planet.
The Hayabusa2 spacecraft dropped the small capsule on Saturday and sent it toward Earth to deliver samples from the asteroid Ryugu, some 300 million kilometers (180 million miles) away, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said.
“The capsule collection work at the landing site was completed,” the agency said in a tweet about four hours after the capsule landed.
“We practiced a lot for today … he finished safely.”
The return of the capsule with the world’s first asteroid subsurface samples comes weeks after NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully sampled the surface of the asteroid Bennu. Meanwhile, China announced this week that its lunar lander collected samples underground and sealed them inside the spacecraft to return to Earth, while space developing nations compete on their missions.
I am very happy that the capsules brought back by Hayabusa 2 after six years of space travel since launch have been successfully recovered. We would like to pay tribute to the successful project manager, Professor Tsuda, and everyone involved, and we look forward to the greatest success of Hayabusa 2, which has relentlessly embarked on a new exploration.#Hayabusa 2 pic.twitter.com/RHiXyzZif1
– Residence of the Prime Minister (@kantei) December 5, 2020
On Sunday morning, the capsule briefly turned into a fireball as it reentered the atmosphere 120 km (75 miles) above Earth.
Approximately 10 km (6 miles) above the ground, a parachute was opened to slow their fall and beacon signals were transmitted to indicate their location.
“It was great … It was a beautiful ball of fire, and I was very impressed,” said JAXA Hayabusa2 project manager Yuichi Tsuda as he celebrated the capsule’s successful return and safe landing from a command center in Sagamihara. , near Tokyo.
“I have waited for this day for six years.”
The capsule descended from 220,000 km (136,700 miles) after it separated from Hayabusa2 in a challenging operation that required precision control.
About two hours after the capsule re-entered, JAXA said its helicopter search team found the capsule at the planned landing area in a remote and sparsely populated area of Woomera, Australia. Recovery of the dish-shaped capsule, about 15 inches in diameter, was completed about two hours later.
JAXA officials said they expected to conduct a preliminary safety inspection at an Australian laboratory and bring the capsule back to Japan early next week.
Samples are on their way for analysis in the Woomera test range. @ haya2e_jaxa @AusAirForce @DeptDefence # Hayabusa2 https://t.co/eBIukNPTgu pic.twitter.com/AK0C7TCArk
– Australian Space Agency (@AusSpaceAgency) December 6, 2020
The material collected from the asteroid is believed to have not changed since the time the universe formed. Larger celestial bodies like Earth underwent radical changes that included heating and solidification, changing the composition of the materials on their surface and below.
But “when it comes to smaller planets or asteroids, these substances did not melt, and therefore substances from 4.6 billion years ago are believed to still be there,” Makoto Yoshikawa, the director of the agency, told reporters. mission, before the capsule arrived.
Scientists are especially interested in finding out whether the samples contain organic matter, which could have helped seed life on Earth.
“We do not yet know the origin of life on Earth and through this Hayabusa-2 mission, if we are able to study and understand these organic materials from Ryugu, it could be that these organic materials were the source of life on Earth,” Yoshikawa said
Half of the Hayabusa-2 samples will be shared between JAXA, the US space agency NASA and other international organizations, and the rest will be kept for future study as advances in analytical technology are made.
This computer graphics image published by JAXA shows the Hayabusa2 spacecraft over the asteroid Ryugu. [File: ISAS/JAXA via AP]
For Hayabusa2, it is not the end of the mission that began in 2014. It is now heading to a small asteroid named 1998KY26 on a journey scheduled to take 10 years one-way, for possible investigation, including finding ways to prevent it from meteorites hit Earth.
So far, your mission has been totally successful. It landed twice on Ryugu despite the asteroid’s extremely rocky surface, and successfully collected data and samples during the year and a half it passed near Ryugu after arriving there in June 2018.
On its first landing in February 2019, it collected dust samples from the surface. On a more challenging mission in July of that year, it collected underground samples of the asteroid for the first time in space history after landing in a crater it previously created by blowing up the asteroid’s surface.
Asteroids, which orbit the sun but are much smaller than planets, are among the oldest objects in the solar system and can therefore help explain how Earth evolved.
[ad_2]
