Shortly after Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe returned to Earth, JAXA revealed some of the samples it collected from asteroid Ryugu. Those rocks came from the “A” chamber of the probe’s sample capsule, meaning they were collected during the mission’s first landing in February 2019. Now JAXA has released photographs showing the contents of the capsule’s “C” chamber, which opened December 21.
We have not yet confirmed the origin of the artificial object (人工 物). A projectile was used in the sampling and it is possible that this is aluminum that was separated from the sampling horn at the time.
– HAYABUSA2 @ JAXA (@ haya2e_jaxa) December 24, 2020
JAXA’s tweet stated that the agency had opened both rooms “B” and “C”. The “B” room is empty because it was not used for collection, but the “C” room was used to collect samples during Hayabusa2’s second landing in July 2019. JAXA fired an explosive into the asteroid ahead of the second landing to create a crater. and be able to take samples from deeper underground. Scientists hope that the underground samples could provide more clues about the formation of the solar system and the early period, given that they were not exposed to the hash environment of space.