December 6 A piece of an asteroid was found in the middle of the Australian desert.
But this was not an act of nature. It was a well-choreographed, painstaking transaction that took years of planning and execution.
Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft, which traveled in space for nearly six years to tag and collect a sample of asteroid Ryugu, dropped a small capsule containing pieces of space rock for analysis here on Earth. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) opened the capsule last week, unveiling the precious space cargo to the world for the first time. And there was a surprise in store.
JAXA has released the images on its website and on Twitter.
As incredible as this moment may be to science, those with keen eyes may notice something strange in the image above. You are not mistaken.
There is definitely something “wrong” with the rocks encapsulated in Chamber C of the Sample Collection Capsule.
It appears to have aluminum foil in it.
Here’s the background – The footage is the culmination of the Hayabusa2 mission, which ended a five-year journey when it landed on asteroid Ryugu on February 21, 2019. The spacecraft arrived within range of Ryugu in June 2018 and spent more than a year orbiting its rocky companion. , sightings and images of Ryugu are collected before it is finally hit.
The spacecraft collected a small sample of the asteroid and dropped it off in the Woomera Prohibited Area in South Australia. The 40-centimeter capsule landed on Earth on December 4, and the team behind the mission located and retrieved it two days later.
After heading to a lab in Japan, scientists finally opened the precious cargo on Dec. 14, looking into a rare monster from the cosmos.
Why it’s newsworthy – Inside the capsule was only the second asteroid monster that humans have managed to obtain throughout history. By studying the sample, scientists hope it will help them better understand the origins of the solar system.
Asteroids are formed from the same material that formed the solar system, and may contain clues as to how water and other biological matter made their way to Earth and sparked life as we know it.
Most of what we know about asteroids comes from meteorites, which rain down to Earth as their comets and asteroids pass our planet. But this material can be changed significantly thanks to Earth’s atmosphere, water, or weather.
So, by holding a piece of an asteroid as it flies through space, scientists are getting pristine material from billions of years ago, when the solar system was in its infancy.
What’s new – As seen in the images, the capsule contains small, grave pieces of the asteroid collected by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft.
There were a total of three capsule chambers containing the asteroid samples. The samples in Room C were larger than those in Room A, and the scientists behind the mission believe the samples from Room C were collected during the spacecraft’s second landing on the asteroid.
Another strange finding in Room C is an artificial object, which appears to be some kind of aluminum foil.
According to JAXA, the small pieces of aluminum could have been scraped off the spacecraft during landing. But the jury is still out on what exactly this piece of material is and where it came from. However, it appears to be artificial and thus possibly space junk.
What’s next – Now that the capsule is open, scientists will spend years analyzing the samples to find out the origin of asteroid Ryugu, as well as the origin of our own world.
According to JAXA, the spacecraft appears to be scooping up more than enough dirt for initial analysis, suggesting it may hold a wealth of new information about asteroids.