The sample was taken to Earth by capsule on December 6 in South Australia. JXA teams were able to retrieve the capsule from where it came from before sending it to Japan and perform some initial tests of the gas in the capsule.
The gas was the first step in helping researchers confirm that the spacecraft successfully collected a sample from Ryugu in 2019 when the spacecraft visited the planet.
The researchers confirmed that the gas originated from Ryugu because their analysis of the gas shows that it differs from the Earth’s atmospheric composition. Between December and another 10 to 11 December in Separate Australia, JXA conducted two separate analyzes at the Extraterrestrial Sample Curation Center on the Sagamihara Campus, helping the teams reach the same result.
Gas probably. Came from the surface of the planet and the material stored just below it.
Researchers will continue to open the capsule containing the sample to understand more about the gas.
The team also confirmed that black sand grains were also inside the sample container, further confirming that there was asteroid content inside the capsule.
By the end of 2021, JXA will distribute small samples to six teams of scientists from around the world, ranging from Rayugu.
Haibusa, meanwhile, continues on its way after a flight to leave the capsule through Earth in early December 2 and will visit more asteroids in the future.
Haibusa 2 was launched on December 3, 2014 and reached the nearest planet to the planet Rayugu in June 2018. The spacecraft collected a sample from the planet’s surface on February 22, 2019, then fired a copper “bullet” into the planet to make 33. Soak the wide impact of the foot. Samples were taken from this pit on July 11, 2019.
After that, Haibusa departed from the asteroid on November 2, 2019 and departed back to Earth.
Together, the mission’s scientists believe a gram of material was collected, but they can’t be sure until it opens up completely.
“One gram may seem small, but one gram is huge for us,” said Masaki Fujimoto, deputy director general of the solar system science department at JXA, during an online briefing hosted by the Australian Australian Science Media Center. “It’s enough to pay attention to our science questions.”
The agency’s first Hibusa mission returned samples to Earth from the asteroid Itokawa in June 2010, but scientists said that due to the failure of the spacecraft’s sampling device, they were only able to retrieve micrograms of dust from the planet.
“Ryugu is linked to the process that made our planet habitable,” Fujimoto said. “The earth was dry; it didn’t start with water. We think distant bodies like Ryugu came into the interior of the solar system, hitting the earth, delivering water and making it habitable. This is the basic question we will do later and what we need. Samples to solve it. “
Asteroids are like the remnants of the structure of our solar system, preserving information about the origin of the planets as well as information about the vital elements for the existence of life on Earth.
The NASA Osiris-Rex mission recently sampled another near-Earth asteroid, Bennu, which is similar in composition to Raigun. In fact, based on preliminary data from both missions, scientists working on both missions believe that the two asteroids once had the same large parent body before being released from effect.
The Bennu specimen will return to Earth by 2023.
Patrick Mitchell, director of research at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, is the investigator for both missions.
“It’s really important to understand that no two asteroids are alike,” Mitchell told CNN in October. “If Bennu and Ryugu share some interesting similarities and they belong to the same class (primitive), there are also some very interesting differences. And these samples will capture the researchers’ pay as large sums will be kept for future pay which There will be advantages. Increase in technology and accuracy of the devices used for their analysis. “
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