TOKYO (AP) – Japan’s space agency officials said Tuesday they found more than the expected amount of soil and gases inside a small capsule that the country’s Haibusa 2 spacecraft brought back from a distant planet earlier this month, a mission it hailed as a landmark in the planets. . Research.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said its staff initially spotted some black particles sitting under the capsule’s sample catcher when they pulled the container out on Monday. By Tuesday, scientists had found more samples of land and gas in a container they had collected from two touchdowns of Hibusa on the planet last year.
“We have well confirmed the sand apparently being collected from the asteroid Rayugu with gases,” Jaxa Haibusa 2 project manager Yuichi Susuda said in a video message during a conference online news conference. “The extraterrestrial specimens we have long imagined are now in our hands.”
Tsuda called the successful return of asteroid soil and gas samples “a major scientific goal.”
The leaf-shaped capsule, 40 centimeters (15 inches) in diameter, was placed by Hayabusa 2 on 6 December at the end of its six-year round trip to Ryug, from space in the sparsely populated Australian Australian desert. 300 million kilometers (190 million miles) from Earth.
The capsule arrived in Japan last Tuesday for research that scientists hope will provide an understanding of the origin of the solar system and life on Earth.
Hirotaka Savada, a JXA scientist, was the first to look inside the sample-catcher of the capsule. Savada said he was “almost speechless” with pleasure when he saw that the samples inside contained the size of a stream, but contained some of the size of a gravel.
The clay samples in the photo shown in Tuesday’s presentation were sitting next to grains like gran throat in the magnificent coffee grounds.
Scientists hope that samples of asteroid’s crust could provide information billions of years ago that were not affected by space radiation and other environmental factors. JXA scientists say they are particularly interested in the organic matter in the samples to find out how they are distributed in the solar system and if they are related to Earth life.
Se-Ichiro Watanabe, an earth and environmental scientist at the University of Nagoya who works with Jago, said having more sample material to work on than expected is great news as it will expand the field of study.
Samples were collected from two touchdowns created by Hybusa 2 on Rayugu last year. The landing was more difficult than expected due to the extremely rocky surface of the asteroid.
Samples were collected from the surface of the Rugu and in the second underground during the first landing. Each was stored separately. JX said it will examine the second compartment, which will be used for a second touchdown next week, and will continue the initial examination of the study material after that.
Following the study in Japan, some samples will be shared with NASA and other international space agencies for additional research starting in 2022.
Haibusa 2, at the time, is now on an 11-year expedition to another planet to try to study the defense potential against a meteorite that could fly to Earth.
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