Japanese Space Agency Shares Sample Photos of Ryugu Asteroids

Asteroid Ryugu appearance. (twitter / haya2e_jaxa)

Hitekno.com – Through the official Twitter account of the Hayabusa 2 @ haya2e_jaxa mission, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) shared a photo uploaded from the sample asteroid Ryugu.

The photos show chunks of black rock and gravel in the container. This success was the culmination of five years of planning.

The new sample from Ryugu was about 5.4 grams. The asteroid sample is thought to be more than 4.5 billion years old.

A relic in the early days of the solar system and contains ancient material, which is predicted to have formed the Sun and the planets that orbit it.

Opening the sealed container, the astronomers found many particles larger than one millimeter in size. The sample that was in space C was slightly larger than the others and was collected from the second landing on the mission.

Because the landings were made north of the crater that was deliberately made earlier on the mission, the scientists hope the samples taken contain chunks of subsurface material.

If successful, that’s a great achievement because all the other asteroid samples collected come only from the surface.

Ryugu itself is a type C asteroid. This means that the rocks are very porous and contain lots of carbon and water.

In addition, because Ryugu’s surface appears very dry and shows a red color, some experts suspect the asteroid once flew closer to the sun.

However, not all of the material collected in the sample capsule was primordial. One of the capsules is said to contain an anachronism.

“The artificial material appears to be in room C. The origin of the material is being investigated, but it is likely aluminum that was eroded by the aircraft sampler. outer space fired a projectile to stir the material during the landing, “the press release of the Hayabusa 2 project was quoted as saying Science Alert, Friday (1/1/2021).

An update from the Hayabusa 2 project Twitter said the object was still unconfirmed. Scientists have already started analyzing this new sample, including the gas trapped inside the capsule, which is thought to have also accumulated on Ryugu’s surface.

If scientists’ estimates are correct, the sample from the asteroid Ryugu is the first gas in the world to be brought back from space.(Suara.com/Lintang Siltya Utami)

– .