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A Japanese spacecraft is about to deliver the first large sample of rock and soil from an asteroid to Earth.
The Hayabusa-2 spacecraft will release its valuable sample cache, which is expected to parachute towards a safe landing in the Australian outback.
He grabbed the cosmic treasure last year from Ryugu, an asteroid considered a particularly primitive relic of the early solar system.
Studying the rocks could provide insight into how life itself began.
The operation is expected to begin around 05:30 GMT on Saturday when the capsule containing asteroid samples will separate from the main spacecraft.
As the capsule heads home to Earth, the “mothership” will change its orbit to go around our planet.
Later, Saturday night, the capsule should be visible to sky watchers in Australia’s Coober Pedy region as a fireball shooting overhead.
It is expected to land within an area of 100 sq km (39 square miles) within the Royal Australian Air Force’s Woomera radius between 17:47 GMT and 17:57.
A beacon on the capsule will transmit data on its location, which will be analyzed in Woomera to find out where it landed.
Once located, it will be taken to a “quick check facility” for inspection before being flown to Japan.
The capsule will be transported to a nursing room in Sagamihara for analysis and storage.
The mission was to collect a sample of over 100 mg.
“Fortunately, the spacecraft is flying very well … we are in excellent condition,” said Yuichi Tsuda, project manager for the mission.
“I hope it works out well, and I hope the weather in Australia is very good. I’m very excited and can’t wait.”
Ryugu belongs to a particularly primitive class of space rock known as a C-type asteroid. Objects like this may have seeded the primeval Earth with water and the organic material necessary for the beginning of life.
“Having samples of an asteroid like Ryugu will be really exciting for our field. We think Ryugu is made up of ancient rocks that will tell us how the Solar System was formed,” said Prof. Sara Russell, leader of the planetary materials group at London’s Natural History Museum, told BBC News.
“We think this asteroid may contain organic material and water that can give us information on how these things were delivered to the early Earth.”
Hayabusa-2 was launched from the Tanegashima Launch Center in the far south of Japan on December 3, 2014. It reached the 1km-wide spinning top object known as 162173 Ryugu in June 2018.
The samples were collected by detonating an explosive charge just above the asteroid. This pushed a copper bullet to the surface, piercing a 20-meter-wide crater in Ryugu.
Hayabusa-2 subsequently descended into this depression with the intention of collecting fresh rocks that had not been altered by eons of exposure to the space environment.
With the samples securely stored, the spacecraft began returning home to Earth in November 2019.
The first Hayabusa probe was launched in 2003 and reached the asteroid Itokawa in 2005.
Despite being hit by several accidents, he returned to Earth in 2010 with a small amount of material from the asteroid.
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