The Japanese spacecraft carrying asteroid soil samples approaches home

A Japanese spacecraft is approaching Earth after a year-long trip home from a distant asteroid with soil samples and data that could provide clues to the solar system’s origins, a space agency official said Friday.

The Hayabusa2 probe left asteroid Ryugu, approximately 300 million kilometers (180 million miles) from Earth, a year ago and is expected to reach Earth and drop a capsule containing the precious samples in South Australia on 6 December. .

Scientists from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency believe the samples, especially those taken from beneath the asteroid’s surface, contain valuable data unaffected by space radiation and other environmental factors.

Makoto Yoshikawa, a mission leader on the Hayabusa2 project, said scientists are particularly interested in analyzing organic materials in Ryugu’s soil samples.

“Organic materials are the origins of life on Earth, but we still don’t know (asterisk) where they come from,” Yoshikawa said. “We hope to find clues to the origin of life on Earth by analyzing the details of the organic materials reported by Hayabusa2.”

JAXA, the space agency, plans to drop the capsule containing the samples in a remote, sparsely populated area of ​​Australia 220,000 kilometers (136,700 miles) away in space, a major challenge that requires precision control. The capsule, protected by a heat shield, will transform into a fireball upon re-entering the atmosphere 200 kilometers (125 miles) above the ground. About 10 kilometers (6 miles) above the ground, a parachute will open to prepare for landing and light signals will be transmitted to indicate its location.

JAXA personnel installed satellite dishes at various locations in the target area to capture signals, while also preparing marine radars, drones and helicopters to assist in the search and recovery mission.

Without these measurements, a search for the pan-shaped capsule with a diameter of 40 centimeters (15 inches) “would be extremely difficult,” Yoshikawa told reporters.

For Hayabusa2, it is not the end of the mission that began in 2014. After dropping the capsule, it will return to space and head to another small distant asteroid called 1998KY26 on a journey that is expected to last 10 years.

Hayabusa2 has landed on Ryugu twice, despite its extremely rocky surface, and has successfully collected data and samples during the 1.5 year period after arriving in June 2018.

In the first touchdown in February 2019, he collected surface dust samples. In July, he collected underground samples from the asteroid for the first time in space history after landing in a crater he had previously created by blowing up the asteroid’s surface.

Scientists said there are traces of carbon and organic matter in the asteroid soil samples. JAXA hopes to find clues as to how the materials are distributed in the solar system and are related to life on Earth.

Asteroids, which orbit the sun but are much smaller than planets, are among the oldest objects in the solar system and therefore can help explain how the Earth has evolved.

It took 3 1/2 years to get to Ryugu, but the journey home was much shorter due to Ryugu’s and Earth’s current locations.

Ryugu in Japanese means “Dragon Palace”, the name of a castle at the bottom of the sea in a Japanese folk tale.

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