SPACE – Samples collected from the asteroid Ryugu seem to hide a great secret of our solar system. Not only about the past, the bombardment experienced by asteroids while moving between planets holds information about what is happening out there. In fact, Ryugu has potential for future asteroid mining missions.
As asteroids explore interplanetary space, they are hit by high-energy particles ejected by the Sun and small objects such as micrometeoroids. These interplanetary environmental factors can cause space weather, although it is difficult to see from long distances.
Usually, meteorites released from asteroids experience such intense heating as they pass through the Earth’s atmosphere that information about their content is not visible in samples far away from our planet. . However, the effect of interplant space is clearly visible in samples collected directly from Ryugu.
The research by a team of scientists on these samples was published in the journal Nature Communications on Monday, April 29 2024. The samples analyzed by the team led by Yuki Kimura from Hokkaido University were taken by the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa 2. The craft was made by Ryugu three and a half years after its launch in June 2014.
Read also: Today’s History: Hayabusa 2 launches to Asteroid Ryugu to take samples
Haybusa 2 spent a year following wherever the 900 meter diameter asteroid moved. It then descended and took samples from its surface in June 2018. The Ryugu samples returned to Earth on December 6, 2020, when Haybusa 2 left to study another asteroid.
“The space weather signals that we can directly detect will give us a better understanding of some of the phenomena that occur in the solar system,” said Kimura.
Magnetite is seen as spherical particles cut from the Ryugu asteroid sample. Image: Yuki Kimura, et al. Nature Communications 29 April 2024 edition.
Find in Ryugu Samples
One of the interesting findings that Kimura and colleagues found in the Ryugu Hayabusa 2 samples were tiny grains called framboids. The framboid is composed of iron oxide, but it seems to have lost its normal magnetic properties. The research team suspects that this was a micrometeoroid, about 0.002 centimeters wide, that attacked Ryugu.
The Ryugu sample is not only useful in determining the current state of the solar system because it was formed from material left over from the formation of planets around the sun about 4.6 billion years ago. Thus, asteroids also contain fossil records of early solar system conditions.
Kimura said the strength of the early solar system’s magnetic field decreased as planets formed. Measuring residual asteroid magnetization through samples like those collected aboard Hayabusa 2 could help reveal detailed information about the early solar system’s magnetic field.
Read also: Uracil-forming RNA found in asteroid Ryugu, sheds light on origin of life on Earth
Unfortunately, in the Ryugu sample, the fossil record of the solar system’s magnetic field is locked in the thousands of iron nanoparticles around the framboid. The research team hopes to reveal the secrets of iron nanoparticles and the position of the early solar system in the near future.
2024-05-02 12:33:53
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