The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Haibusa 2 mission is heading to Earth to leave its sample collection before moving on to the front of its expanded mission: Visiting more asteroids.
Although the event is taking place on Sunday between 30:30 and 30:30 Australian Australian time, it will take place on Saturday from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm The capsule is expected to land on Earth 15 minutes after entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
Fireballs will spread in the early morning sky of the fire strain outback during the fare.
Haibusa 2 was launched on December 3, 2014 and reached the nearest planet to the planet Rayugu in June 2018. The spacecraft collected a sample from the planet’s surface on February 22, 2019, then fired a copper “bullet” into the planet to make 33. Soak the wide impact of the foot. Samples were taken from this pit on July 11, 2019.
After that, Haibusa departed from the asteroid on November 2, 2019 and departed back to Earth.
Together, the mission’s science team believes 1 gram of material was collected, but they can’t confirm it until they open it.
“One gram may seem small, but for us one gram is huge,” said Masaki Fujimoto, deputy director general of the solar system science department at JXA, during an online briefing hosted by the Australian Australian Science Media Center. “It’s enough to pay attention to our science questions.”
The agency’s first Hibusa mission returned samples to Earth from the asteroid Itokawa in June 2010, but scientists said that due to the failure of the spacecraft’s sampling device, they were only able to obtain micrograms of dust from the planet.
“Ryugu is linked to the process that made our planet habitable,” Fujimoto said. “The earth was dry; it didn’t start with water. We think distant bodies like Ryugu came into the interior of the solar system, hitting the earth, delivering water and making it habitable. This is the basic question we will do later and we need. Samples to solve it. “
Fiery return
While Hayabusa 2 does not return to Earth, it is releasing a 35-pound sample return capsule as it swings 136,701 miles through our planet this week. After that, the spacecraft will change its route to travel more than Earth and move forward with its extended mission.
The Australian Government has approved JXA to land its capsule in the Wummera Prohibited Area of South Australia. This remote area is used for testing by the Australian Department of Defense.
The site was previously used by Japan’s space agency in 2010 for the Hayabusa landing. Its partnership with Australia, the vast, flat and open nature of the land and the fact that the team could soon move the sample from Australia to Japan appealed to JAXA.
Around 4 a.m. Australian time, the team will search for fireballs to advance into the Australian Australian sky.
“For non-team members, the fireball sounds like a grand finale. But for us it rings the bell and tells us, ‘This is not an exercise.'” Fujimoto said.
The vast landing zone stretches 124 miles from north to south and 62 miles from east to west. The agency has designated this large area to compensate for any uncertainty created by the local wind speed when the capsule deploys its parachute.
After that, the team will try to locate the landing site of the capsule as quickly as possible.
Once the capsule is located, a helicopter will take the sample team’s scientists to the landing site so they can collect it. The capsule will be placed in a protective box, and they will bring it to headquarters, a temporary facility built to rebuild it.
This clean room will allow the team to inspect the capsule and allow degreasing. It is possible that the capsule collected gases from the asteroid – which comes out through a sample of the stored spacecraft. Any investigation of the gas in the gas sample container is a good indication that they have successfully collected a sample of the material from the planet.
An official announcement about the amount of material collected from the planet will be made once the samples return to Japan and are opened, Fujimoto said.
Hibusa 2 will fly by three asteroids between 2026 and 2031, eventually reaching the fastest micro-asteroid 1998 KY26 in July 2031, millions of miles from Earth. It will be the first flyby of this type of asteroid.
What’s in an asteroid sample?
Asteroids are like the remnants of the structure of our solar system, preserving information about the origin of the planets as well as information about the vital elements for the existence of life on Earth.
The Ryugu is shaped like a diamond and is half a mile in diameter.
Trevor Ireland, a professor at the Australian National University Research School of Earth Sciences, said, “I expect samples of the asteroid Ryuguna’s Hybusa 2 to be very similar to the meteorite that fell into Australia Australia more than 500 years ago, near Mercison, Victoria. A member of the Hayabusa 2 Science team in Vumera, in a statement.
“The Morchison meteor opened a window on the origin of life on Earth, as these rocks have been found to contain common amino acids and abundant water. When the solar system arrives, Ryugu will investigate whether there is a possible source of organic matter and water on Earth. Was forming and whether this is still intact on the asteroid. “
Ryug is also a planet close to Earth with an orbit that takes it between Earth and Mars. It will form a closer approach to Earth in December 2076. Understanding these potentially dangerous asteroids could enable planning by space agencies on how to ignore them.
The NASA Osiris-Rex mission recently sampled another nearby Earth asteroid, Bennu, which is similar in composition to Raigun. In fact, based on preliminary data from both missions, scientists working on both missions believe that the two asteroids once belonged to the same large parent body before being released from effect.
The Bennu specimen will return to Earth by 2023.
Patrick Mitchell, director of research at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, is the investigator for both missions.
“It’s really important to understand that no two asteroids are alike,” Mitchell told CNN in October. “If Bennu and Ryugu share some interesting similarities and they belong to the same class (primitive), there are also some very interesting differences. And these samples will capture the payroll of the researchers as a large amount will be kept for future generations. There will be advantages. Increase in technology and accuracy of the devices used for their analysis. “
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