Fireballs scattered across the sky on Saturday night disrupted the darkness of the Australian Australian outback. Then he pulled a parachute out of space, slowing his plume to the ground. Minutes later, he descended gently into the red desert dust and began to move forward.
The Flying Buzzet was one of the first capsules collected from an asteroid – the fruit of Japan’s Haibusa-2 mission.
In 2014, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JXA) launched a spacecraft for the planet Rayugu: a primitive, half-mile-wide rock that zips 131 million miles (211 million kilometers) from our solar system into the Sun.
The Hayabusa-2 probe landed on Ryugu in February to collect shallow samples from the planet’s surface. Then two months later, the mission took a step further: the investigation detonated a 33-foot pit in Rayugu using copper plates and explosives. It oozes rocks and exposed material beneath the surface. In July 2019, Hayabusa-2 once again lowered itself and cut the debris.
Scientists believe that the Earth’s surface may be as old as our solar system, as it is protected from the sun’s radiation and has not undergone heat and cooling processes to replace the rock inside the planets.
As such, the Hayabusa-2 specimens could reveal new details about the origin of our solar system and the origin of life on Earth.
On board with the Astroid Id Loot, the spacecraft zipped back and reached Earth orbit on Saturday. He then took out the sample capsule – “Treasure Box X”, which JX calls it – and allowed it to fall to Earth.
In all, Hayabusa-2 has traveled about 3.3 billion miles.
Achieving asteroid booty from Australian Australian outback
Going into the capsule atmosphere at a speed of .5..5 miles per second it ignited a path in the night sky. JAXA caught an explosion in its live feed of sample returns – the video embedded below starts at that moment.
About miles above the ground, the capsule released a parachute and sailed safely through the Wummera Desert in Australia. It landed at 2:30 a.m. local time on Sunday.
Upon arrival, the treasure box forwarded the signal to some antennas near the box, allowing the JXA to triangle the location of the capsule.
The retrieval team waited until the sun rose gay, then departed for the landing site.
They arrived at the capsule at 0:03 a.m. local time and filled it for travel.
“Jax’s outstanding technological achievement is a testament to the depth of science and technology in Japan today,” Australia’s ambassador to Japan, John Adams, told a news conference. “Haibusa-2 has returned its precious cargo to Earth.”
Organic material on ryugu can point to the origin of life
Next, JXA will transport the sample to Japan and distribute its parts for scientific study.
Ryugu is a C-type asteroid, which means it is rich in organic carbon molecules, water and possibly amino acids – a barrier to the formation of proteins necessary for the development of life on Earth. Some theories show that asteroids were the first to deliver amino acids to our planet.
According to The Guardian, Hayabusa-2 project mission manager Makoto Yoshikawa said in a briefing on Friday, “Organic materials are the origin of life on Earth, but we still don’t know where they came from.” “We hope to find the key to the origin of life on Earth by analyzing the details of the organic matter returned by Hayabusa-2.”
The Haibusa-2 spacecraft, meanwhile, will continue on an 11-year extended mission to explore a small, fast-moving planet called KY26 in 1998.
NASA is ahead
NASA spacecraft sampled its own planet this year: Osiris-Rex (short for Spectral, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer). The probe, which began in 2016, landed on the high-altitude asteroid Bennu on October 20 for just six seconds to raise dust on its surface. In that short landing, he collected a whopping 2 pounds for sampling.
The spacecraft will not return until 2023 with its bounty.
But combined, samples of Osiris-Rex and Haibusa-2 will provide the world’s first comprehensive set. NASA and JX have agreed to share parts of their samples for scientific study.
Fractions of asteroid samples from both agencies will also be stored for future research.
Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, said: “These specimens returning from Bennu will also allow future planetary scientists to ask questions that we cannot even think of today and use analytical techniques that have not yet been discovered. “Osiris-Rex, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, said in a briefing after collecting his samples.
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