[ad_1]
TOKYO: Call it a special delivery: After six years in space, the Japanese probe Hayabusa-2 is returning home, but only to release its rare asteroid samples before starting a new mission.
The refrigerator-sized probe, launched in December 2014, has already wowed scientists by landing and collecting material from an asteroid some 300 million km from Earth.
But its work isn’t done yet, with scientists from Japan’s JAXA space agency planning to extend its mission over a decade and target two new asteroids.
Before that mission can begin, Hayabusa-2 must leave his precious samples from the asteroid Ryugu – “dragon palace” in Japanese.
Hayabusa-2 will approach Earth to release rare asteroid samples before returning to deep space for a new extended mission. (Photo: AFP / Behrouz Mehri)
Scientists hope that the capsule will contain about 0.1 g of material that will offer clues as to what the solar system looked like when it was born some 4.6 billion years ago.
The samples could shed light on “how matter is scattered throughout the solar system, why it exists on the asteroid and how it is related to Earth,” project leader Yuichi Tsuda told reporters ahead of Sunday’s release.
The material is in a capsule that will separate from Hayabusa-2 as it is approximately 220,000km above Earth and then crash into the South Australian desert.
They were collected during two crucial phases of the mission last year.
In the first, Hayabusa-2 landed on Ryugu to collect dust before firing an “impactor” to lift pristine material from beneath the surface. Months later, he landed to collect more samples.
“We may be able to obtain substances that will give us clues to the birth of a planet and the origin of life … I am very interested in seeing the substances,” mission leader Makoto Yoshikawa told reporters.
Graph explaining how the Japanese space probe Hayabusa-2 will leave asteroid samples on Earth before starting a new mission. (Image: AFP / Janis Latvels)
Protected from sunlight and radiation inside the capsule, the samples will be collected, processed, then flown to Japan.
Half of the material will be shared between JAXA, the US space agency NASA and other international organizations, and the rest will be kept for future study as advances in analytical technology are made.
TWO NEW ASTEROID OBJECTIVES
After leaving its samples, Hayabusa-2 will complete a series of orbits around the sun for about six years, recording dust data in interplanetary space and observing exoplanets.
It will then approach the first of its target asteroids in July 2026.
The spacecraft won’t get that close to asteroid 2001 CC21, but scientists hope it will be able to photograph it as it completes a “high-speed pass.”
Getting that close could also help develop knowledge on how to protect Earth from asteroid impact.
This undated photo courtesy of Jaumann et al, Science 2019, shows a new image taken by the German-French Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) on the surface of the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu. (Photo: AFP / Jaumann et. Al, Science 2019)
Hayabusa-2 will then head towards its main target, KY26 from 1998, a ball-shaped asteroid with a diameter of only 30m. When the spacecraft arrives on the asteroid in July 2031, it will be approximately 300 million km from Earth
And the lens poses significant new challenges, not least because it rotates rapidly, rotating on its axis every 10 minutes or so.
Hayabusa-2 will observe and photograph the asteroid, but is unlikely to land and collect samples, as it likely won’t have enough fuel to bring them back to Earth.
READ: The Chinese spaceship lands on the Moon to bring the rocks back to Earth
However, even getting to the asteroid will be a challenge, said Seiichiro Watanabe, a project scientist on the Hayabusa-2 spacecraft and professor of planetary sciences at the University of Nagoya.
“He is like an athlete who scored two goals in a rugby world cup game trying to compete in the Olympics, 10 years after moving into figure skating,” he told reporters.
“We never expected Hayabusa-2 to serve another mission … but it’s a scientifically significant and fascinating plan.”
The mission extension carries risks, including the fact that Hayabusa-2’s equipment will degrade in deep space, but it also offers a rare and relatively inexpensive way to continue research.
The spacecraft is the successor to JAXA’s first asteroid explorer “Hayabusa”, which is Japanese for hawk.
That probe brought back dust samples from a smaller potato-shaped asteroid in 2010 after a seven-year odyssey and was hailed as a scientific triumph.
.
[ad_2]
Source link
