Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe made a “perfect” touchdown Thursday on a distant asteroid, collecting samples from beneath the surface in an unprecedented mission that could shed light on the origins of the solar system.
“We’ve collected a part of the solar system’s history,” project manager Yuichi Tsuda said at a jubilant press conference hours after the successful landing was confirmed.
“We have never gathered sub-surface material from a celestial body further away than the Moon,” he added.
Japanese spacecraft landed on the asteroid surface.
Hayabusa2 has collected a second sample from the asteroid’s surface. It could give us a unique insight into how the early solar system was formed.
The procedure: After a few hours of maneuvering, the spacecraft touched down on Ryugu’s surface at 9:15 p.m. US Eastern time yesterday. It then fired a bullet into the asteroid and collected some of the debris stirred up by the shot. The Japanese space agency JAXA tweeted that the mission had been a success and that the space probe had now left the surface again. It’s the second sampling mission after a similar one in April, and it required particularly careful preparations, because any problems could cause the materials gathered during the first operation to be lost. In April, Hayabusa2 had also fired a copper bomb into the asteroid’s surface to expose the rocks beneath, in anticipation of today’s mission.
Next steps: Hayabusa2 is scheduled to return to Earth at the end of this year, but before it does it has a final task: deploying a smaller rover called MINERVA-II2 later this summer. Its primary goal will be to explore in an environment where there is very little gravity.
An interesting article on how tsunamis caused by comets wiped out civilization in what is now the southeastern U.S. twice, in 539 and again in 1014. The bit about ammonia in the atmosphere also reminded me of the Norse prophecy about Thor wrestling with the Midgard Serpent, accompanied by poison in the air that kills many. I wonder how many strange things were witnessed by our ancestors for which they left us records that we are simply unable to understand.
Two massive comet or asteroid strikes in the past 1500 years altered Eastern North America’s history. The one in 539 AD devastated the South Atlantic Coast and permanently changed its geography. It left the South Atlantic Coastal Plain almost uninhabited. Hundreds of Uchee and Muskogean communities were wiped off the face of the earth. For obvious reasons, survivors headed north to the mountains.
Over a decade ago, I attended a conference in Macon, GA on the Swift Creek Culture. An anthropology professor matter-of-factly mentioned that all the Swift Creek Culture villages in the South Atlantic Coastal Plain were abandoned around 550 AD. About the same time, a large town with mounds on the Etowah River in Northwest Georgia began a rapid decline.
NASA life support analyst Lucie Poulet explains how analog missions work and what they tell us about future crewed missions.
Fifty years ago, humans took their first steps on the Moon. The world watched as we made history.
On July 19 at 1 p.m. EDT, we’ll salute our #Apollo50th heroes and look forward to our next giant leap.
Will you be watching? https://go.nasa.gov/327ZDZs
Scientists are unlocking clues about the earliest formation of our solar system from a Kuiper Belt Object known as 2014 MU69.
If we loved the deep sea as much as deep space, we might not have so many environmental problems.
O.o.
How does the universe work? It appears that a new AI could help find the answer as it was able to work well beyond the parameters set by its developers.
