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‘We found the capsule. Along with the parachute. Wow, ”Japan’s Jaxa Space Center tweeted Sunday after the capsule was found by a helicopter in Australia’s Woomera Desert on Sunday.
“Hayabusa2 is home,” Dr. Yuichi Tsuda said at a press conference in Sagamihara, Japan, later that day.
Yuichi Tsuda (left) and Jaxa boss Hitoshi Kuninaka display a Hayabusa2 model at Sunday’s press conference.
Photo: AP
He is the project manager for the ambitious space mission and says they have now recovered a “treasure chest” from the Australian desert.
First samples of an asteroid
The spacecraft began its journey in 2014. Its capsule carries material from the asteroid Ryugu, which may be 4.6 billion years old.
Researchers hope it says something about the origin of the solar system. They are also excited to know if you bring organic material with you that can say something about the origin of humanity.
By mapping the complex chemistry of the asteroid, scientists can tell us more about how life originated on Earth. The samples are the first to be taken from below the surface of an asteroid.
Hayabusa2 left Ryugu, which is 300 million kilometers from Earth, about a year ago. On Saturday he launched the capsule, which began its journey towards earth.
The capsule was located in the Australian desert and transported to a nearby facility for rapid analysis before being shipped to Japan.
Photo: AP
Flight to Japan for analysis
After the scientists collected the capsule from the sand at Woomera, they took it to a nearby facility for a “quick look.” There, the researchers hope to extract gases from the capsule for analysis.
The 16-kilogram capsule will then fly to Japan, where it will be stored and analyzed at the facilities of the Japanese Jaxa space center in Sagamihara.
One of the goals is to find complex organic molecules. Researchers already know that Ryugu contains a lot of carbon.
The asteroid Ryugu is shaped like a square. It is located 300 million kilometers from Earth.
Photo: AP
What they hope is to detect traces of the ribose sugar molecule. This sugar is used by all living things on earth.
To obtain the samples, Hayabusa2 has fired projectiles that fall to the ground in Ryugu at a speed of more than a thousand kilometers per hour.
The result of the violent action was that material was thrown from the surface, and some of this was cared for in a special storage mechanism on the spacecraft.
The capsule of the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 began its journey to Earth on Saturday after obtaining samples from the asteroid Ryugu.
Photo: BROCHURE / Reuters
