Japan’s Hajabusza-2 space probe collected more soil and gas samples from the asteroid Ryugu than expected, the Japan Space Agency (JAXA) said on Tuesday.

“Our goal was a minimum of 100 milligrams and we achieved it,” said Savada Hirotaka, a JAXA employee. The researcher said he got stuck when he first opened the capsule and saw the 4.6 billion-year-old specimens in it. “It was very different from what I expected, it was a large amount,” he added.

He noted that, contrary to expectations, not only dust size samples were found, but also grain and gravel size. In photos presented at an online press conference Tuesday, the soil samples looked like bags of dark coffee or black sesame seeds.

These patterns mark the culmination of Hajabus-2’s six-year mission. They reached Earth from the asteroid 300 million kilometers last week, but experts were only able to investigate what the shipment actually was in a week.

Experts saw black particles at the bottom of the capsule’s sample collection compartment when the container was removed on Monday. On Tuesday, however, more soil and gas samples were found in a compartment containing samples collected on the first occasion of the two Hajabusza-2 soil maturations last year.

During Hajabus-2’s first landing, samples were collected from Ryugu’s surface, the second time from below the surface, and the probe stored them in two separate compartments. The contents of the compartment containing the second landing result will undergo primary inspection by JAXA experts the following week, followed by further examination of the material at a later date.

Japanese spacecraft sends very important samples to Earth

The Haybusza-2 spacecraft also successfully completed its second landing on the asteroid Ryugu, 280 million kilometers from Earth, on Thursday to collect a sample from the artificial crater that detonated in April, the Japanese space agency JAXA said.

Following the studies in Japan, some of the samples will be shared with the United States Space Agency (NASA) and other international research teams beginning in 2022 for further investigation.

According to Vatanabe Sej-Ichiro, a scientist at Nagoya University in collaboration with JAXA, the fact that many more samples have been collected than expected is also very good news, as it could expand the range of studies.

The spacecraft, which was launched from Earth in 2014, landed on the asteroid twice last year after traveling many millions of kilometers. He was able to sample the underground rock from the space rock by hitting a small man-made crater in the ground with a metal projectile.

The samples returned to Earth in a capsule, in a sealed metal container, and on May 6, Hajabus-2, which passed the planet, dropped the capsule on a desert area of ​​Australia. The capsule found arrived in Japan two days later, where it was opened under special conditions, under vacuum, to avoid possible contamination.

“We found that the probe collected most of the sand, along with gases, from the Ryug. The off-Earth samples that we had dreamed of for so long are finally in our hands,” said Cuda Juicsi, project director. JAXA Hair Bus-2.

The expert called the successful arrival of the samples a “great scientific milestone.”

The researchers are primarily interested in samples from the surface of Ryugu because they were not valued for the effects of radiation from space and other environmental factors.

Ryugu is a C-type asteroid that experts believe formed about 4.6 billion years ago at the dawn of the Solar System, so it may contain organic matter that also contributed to the formation of life on Earth, so can provide information about the origin of life.

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Hajabus-2 spacecraft capsule contains black particles



MTI
Technology

The Japanese spacecraft Haybus-2 capsule returned 4.6 billion-year-old samples from an asteroid called Ryugu. Researchers are now examining them to see if the mission really worked.

With patterns of 4.6 billion years, the Japanese space capsule returned to Earth



MTI / hvg.hu
Technology

A capsule containing asteroid rock samples collected by the Japanese Haybusza-2 spacecraft arrived on Earth in “perfect condition.”