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Paul Rincon, Editor-in-Chief, BBC News Website
Image courtesy of DLR
Hayabusa 2 went to Ryugu to collect rock samples and came back (picture is picture)
The Japan Aerospace Research and Development Organization (JAXA) announced in the early morning of the 6th that the “Hayabusa 2” spacecraft had found a capsule containing rocks collected from the asteroid “Ryugu” in Australia.
The capsule landed on a parachute in the Woomera Desert in South Australia.
The capsule entered the atmosphere after being separated from the spacecraft.
The official Twitter account of “Hayabusa 2” announced at 4:47 am on the 6th that the local team searched by helicopter and found the capsule.
On the 5th, the capsule was seen flying over the Cooperpedi region of Australia like a fireball.
The capsule, which hurtled towards the ground at 11 km / s, deployed a parachute and descended slowly. The capsule then issued a beacon signal to mark the landing site.
The search for the capsule was carried out by a helicopter equipped with a beacon reception facility with the cooperation of the Australian Air Force. At 6:23 am the collection work began.
The capsule, which weighs 16 kg, has now been taken to a “simple research facility” at its local headquarters. In the future, it will be shipped to Japan and analyzed and stored at the JAXA facility in Sagamihara City, Kanagawa Prefecture.
The plan was to collect more than 100 milligrams of sample from Ryugu.
“This sample should reveal a lot not only about the history of the solar system, but also about the substance itself,” said Alan Fitzsimmons, a professor at Queen’s University Belfast in the UK.
For asteroids like Ryugu, the substances that formed the solar system are considered to remain as they are. It is made of the same material that made planets like Earth, but did not become a planet.
“The sampling of asteroids like Ryugu is very exciting news in this area. Ryugu is believed to be made from very old rocks,” said Sarah Russell, who heads the Planetary Materials Group at the Natural History Museum in London. It should tell you how the solar system was created. “
Origin of water on earth
Ryugu’s sample may also show how potentially deadly substances and water were brought to primordial Earth.
It was long thought that most of the Earth’s water was carried by panthers in the early days of the solar system. However, according to Professor Fitzsimmons, the water content of the planet may differ from seawater on Earth.
On the other hand, the composition of the water contained in asteroids outside the solar system may be similar to that of Earth. Ryugu is believed to have come from these cold places before entering orbit near Earth today.
“We’ve always thought that it was the stars that brought water to Earth in the early solar system, but perhaps we should have focused on the early rocky asteroids closest to Earth. It can be, “said Professor Fitz Simmons.
“With a sample from Ryugu, we will carefully examine that point as well.”
“Hayabusa 2” separates the capsules at a point 200,000 meters above the ground. After the capsule turned into a fireball and hurtled into the atmosphere, it deployed a parachute about 10,000 meters above the sky. At the same time, the shield part was detached.After that, the capsule slowly landed.
