Hayabusa2: artificial crater and samples from asteroid Ryugu
Hayabusa2: cráter artificial y muestras del asteroide Ryugu
- Date
- 6 de diciembre de 2020 · confidence high
- Place
- Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, JAXA, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan
- Credited to
- JAXA (Yuichi Tsuda, project manager)
- Field
- Movement
What was discovered
The probe made an artificial crater on the carbonaceous asteroid Ryugu with an explosive charge to collect subsurface material, and returned about 5.4 g in 2020. The samples contain water, carbon and about twenty amino acids.
Hayabusa (2005-2010) is already an entry; this one adds the artificial crater and samples from a carbonaceous asteroid, richer than those of Itokawa. The MASCOT and Minerva-II modules landed on Ryugu.
What it led to
- the hypothesis that asteroids like Ryugu supplied organic compounds to the early Earth
- reuse of the sampling technique by OSIRIS-REx and Chang'e
- the map of a 'rubble-pile' asteroid