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After a space travel of over five billion kilometers, the Japanese space probe “Hayabusa 2” has finished its last maneuver brilliantly for the moment: it has dropped a capsule containing samples of the asteroid Ryugu on the South Australian desert. This was announced by the Japanese space agency Jaxa. The samples are 4.6 billion years old material. Researchers want to use it to trace the origins of the solar system.
The capsule is expected to enter Earth’s atmosphere on Saturday evening (CET) and is then slowed by the atmosphere as heat develops. About ten kilometers above Australia, a parachute must be deployed around 18.30 (CET), on which the capsule hovers on the ground. It is expected to land in a desert area in southern Australia, the Woomera test site for aerospace.
The samples were collected in several spectacular maneuvers last year: at the end of February 2019, “Hayabusa 2” briefly landed on the asteroid and fired a ball at its surface to kick up dust for the samples. In April 2019, it even blew up a crater in the celestial body.
The analysis is expected to start in June
The expected landing of the capsule marks the completion of the mission begun by Japan in December 2014. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) with the “Mascot” lander also took part in the spectacular project. The German-Franco-Japanese mission is to provide new knowledge about the formation of our solar system and the possibility of repelling an asteroid in the event of a threat of collision with the earth. Scientists suspect that organic matter and water date back 4.6 billion years on the Ryugu asteroid.
The first analyzes of the material will begin in Japan next June. The Japanese space agency Jaxa will make some of the samples available to NASA and, from 2022, also to researchers from other countries. The DLR is also planning investigations.
While the capsule is expected on Earth, the “Hayabusa 2” probe has already left for its next mission. It should head for another near-Earth asteroid and get there in about ten years.
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