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◀ Anchor ▶
Here’s the news from space.
The dirt from the asteroid in the distance of the universe reached Earth.
It was picked up and sent by a Japanese space probe.
It has been flying at a tremendous distance of more than 13,000 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
It is hoped that this soil can reveal the secrets of the birth of the Earth and the solar system.
Correspondent Ko Hyun-seung reports from Tokyo.
◀ Report ▶
At 2:30 am, a mass of light with a long tail dangling like a comet appeared in the dark sky.
A 40 cm diameter capsule separated from the Japanese asteroid probe Hayabusa2, entered the atmosphere at a speed of 12 km per second and fell into the desert in South Australia.
Applause and cheers erupted from the control center near Tokyo, where I watched while holding my breath.
“Wow…”
[츠다 유이치/일본우주항공기구 팀장]“The radio wave is cut off means landing. It was a beautiful blast from the atmosphere.”
The research team managed to recover the capsules by tracking the signal and began analyzing the gas contained in the capsules before being transported to Japan.
Hayabusa 2, launched in December 2014, took to the air over the asteroid ‘Ryugu’, 340 million kilometers from Earth in three and a half years.
Subsequently, metal bullets were fired at the asteroid’s surface to create a pool about 10 meters in diameter, then they landed on the asteroid and soil samples were taken below the surface.
Shortly after, Hayabusa 2 headed home and after a year or so it reached 220,000 kilometers above Earth and sent a capsule containing the specimen to Earth.
The sample collected by Hayabusa2 is approximately 0.1 grams.
In academia, it is significant that Hayabusa 1 brought ground to the surface from asteroids in 2010, and this time it was the first time it secured ground below the surface.
Soil on the surface can be damaged by meteorites and radiation, known as “space weathering,” but the ground below the surface likely remained the same when the solar system was born 4.6 billion years ago.
[야마카와 히로시/JAXA 이사장]“We hope to achieve results that are closer to the process of creating the solar system and the origin of the water that is transmitted to Earth.”
The Japan Aerospace Organization plans to share half of the samples with foreign research institutes such as the US Aeronautics and Space Administration, and reserve some for future research.
Hayabusa 2 completed its first mission after sailing 5.2 billion kilometers for 6 years, and plans to fly 10 billion kilometers for another 11 years to try to land on another asteroid.
I’m Hyunseung Ko from MBC News in Tokyo.
(Video coverage: Kim Jin-ho (Tokyo), Video editing: Byun Seo-ha)
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