Capsule with asteroid debris lands in Australia
Print Edition
A JAPANESE capsule carrying the world’s first asteroid subsurface samples shot across the night atmosphere early yesterday before landing in the remote Australian Outback, completing a mission to provide clues to the origin of the solar system and life on Earth.
The spacecraft Hayabusa2 released the small capsule on Saturday and sent it toward Earth to deliver samples from a distant asteroid. At about 10 kilometers above ground, a parachute was opened to slow its fall and beacon signals were transmitted to indicate its location in the sparsely populated area of Woomera in southern Australia.
About two hours after the reentry, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said its helicopter search team found the capsule in the planned landing area. The retrieval of the pan-shaped capsule, about 40 centimeters in diameter, was completed after another two hours.
The spacecraft, launched in 2014 from Japan’s Tanegashima space center, journeyed for four years to the asteroid Ryugu, where it gathered a sample and headed home in November 2019.
Spectators gathered at a theater near the Japanese capital of Tokyo to view the return clapped and waved banners in NHK footage, with one woman in tears.
“The probe landed on the asteroid twice, and the second time it created an artificial crater and collected some debris,” JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa told a news conference.
“I hope this will shed light on how the solar system was formed and how water was brought to Earth.”
The capsule may also contain some gas, which will be extracted in Australia, Yamakawa added.
Asteroids are believed to have formed at the dawn of the solar system, and scientists say the sample may contain organic matter that could have contributed to life on Earth.
“What we are really doing here is trying to sample this pristine rock that has not been irradiated by the sun,” astrophysicist Lisa Harvey-Smith told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Gases trapped in the rock samples could reveal more about conditions prevailing about 4.6 billion years ago, she added.
For Hayabusa2, it’s not the end of the mission it started in 2014. It is now heading to a small asteroid called 1998KY26 on a journey slated to take 10 years one way.
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