Sample return missions are becoming more and more fashionable, as evidenced by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission and China’s current Chang’e 5 drilling operation on the Moon. But they are not easy. In February 2019, Hayabusa2 landed on the surface and fired two small bullets at the asteroid to project a cloud of particles from which the sampling arm could collect debris. It fired a larger projectile in April of the same year and dived to the surface a few months later to collect even more of the ejected material.
While Hayabusa’s first mission was only able to recover a millionth of a gram thanks to this approach, there is optimism that Hayabusa2 will deliver much more. “I am proud of this success, even if I still do not know if the return [of the sample capsule] it will succeed, ”says Eri Tatsumi, a planet specialist at the University of La Laguna in Spain who has worked directly with Hayabusa2 data so far.
Asteroids are like time capsules in ancient space history because their physical and chemical makeup is much better preserved over time than, say, that of a planet (including internal warming and magnetic field and potential atmosphere encourage continued activity.). In this case, studying Ryugu’s material can help us understand what the early solar system looked like when large amounts of gas and dust merged into different asteroids, moons, and planets, including habitable worlds like the Earth.
“What we would like to know is what are the processes that shaped the solar system,” says Tatsumi. “I would like to know what kind of organic matter is in Ryugu, if it contains the basic building blocks for life.” She believes that studying the Ryugu samples could allow scientists to “add another page to our knowledge of early solar system materials” and the types of elements and compounds that may have been sent to the Earth. start of Earth via meteorite impacts. . Ryugu himself appears to be too fragile to survive a current entry into Earth’s atmosphere, so he’s probably quite different from the meteorite remnants on Earth that we’ve been able to analyze so far.
Additionally, there are some bizarre things about Ryugu’s story that require the kind of context that can only be gleaned from lab analysis. Tomokatsu Morota, a planet specialist at the University of Tokyo, led a team that studied the Ryugu surface using images taken by Hayabusa2 cameras. The team achieved surface disturbances caused by solar heating. “This suggests a scenario where Ryugu made an orbital excursion near the sun,” he says. A closer look at the rock fragments could help confirm whether or not this happened.
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Hayabusa2 will drop off the Ryugu material sample capsule in a few days. He must survive a fierce re-entry before landing in Australia. The spacecraft itself, however, will return for an extended mission, first to asteroid 2001 CC21 for a flyby in July 2026, then a formal encounter with asteroid 1998 KY26 in July 2031. Among these highlights, the spaceship the spaceship will perform some oscillations around the Earth while trying to make observations of distant exoplanets.
The success of Hayabusa2 will also continue in future sample return missions. JAXA is planning one for the Martian moon Phobos, called Martian Moon Exploration, or MMX. “MMX is technically made up of a lot of the legacy established by Hayabusa and Hayabusa2,” Tatsumi says. “And the Hayabusa2 project involved many young scientists and engineers who will lead the missions of the next generation. Based on these experiences, JAXA may launch larger and more complex missions in the future.