JAXA Shares Asteroid Samples Brought By Ryugu
Japan Space Agency JAXA opened the C-ring of the Hayabusa2 vehicle and shared images of the asteroid subsurface fragments found inside it with the rest of the world.
One of the most interesting space missions of recent years was the Hayabusa2 mission performed by the Japan Space Agency Jaxa. In this mission, the vehicle collected subsurface fragments from the asteroid called Ryugu and returned to our planet.
JAXA, which previously opened the A-ring of the vehicle and started to examine the samples collected in February 2019, recently opened the C-ring of the spacecraft. The examples in this section were obtained in the second mission.
JAXA announced on Twitter
JAXA shared the examples by sending a tweet and gave information about the process. It was stated in this post that the B and C capsules of the vehicle were opened. The B capsule circle was not used for sample collection. These examples were made during the vehicle’s second mission in July 2019.
To collect the samples, the Hayabusa2 vehicle drilled holes in the surface of the asteroid using a kind of explosive projectile and collected the blown parts with a vacuum cleaner-like equipment. The aim of this study is to learn more about the early structure and formation of the Solar System using subsurface fragments.
According to the statement of JAXA, the parts in the C-ring are roughly 1 centimeter in size. It was stated in the photographs that the agency named a particle as “artificial object”. According to the description, this part may be an aluminum part that breaks off the sample collection mechanism.
New target asteroids
One of the most important topics in space research is the study of asteroids. As humanity’s access to space increases in the future, other celestial bodies in our system will begin to offer new resources.
Subsurface particles that have not encountered the harsh environment of space will also provide information about how meteorites and other celestial bodies formed and what kind of structures they contain. Do you think humanity will be a race that establishes mining colonies in asteroids and spread to its system in the future?
