Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe makes ‘perfect’ touchdown on asteroid
JAPAN’S Hayabusa2 probe made a “perfect” touchdown on Thursday on a distant asteroid, collecting samples from beneath the surface in an unprecedented mission that could shed light on the origins of the solar system.
“We’ve collected a part of t he sola r system’s histor y,” project manager Yuichi Tsuda said at a jubilant press conference hours after t he successf ul landing was confirmed.
“We have never gathered sub-surface material from a celestial body further away than the Moon,” he added.
“We did it and we succeeded in a world first.”
The fridge-sized probe made its second landing on the asteroid around 10 :30am (7:30am Cambodian time), with officia ls from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Ja xa) brea k ing into applause and cheers as initia l data suggested the touchdown had been a success.
Confirmation of the land
ing came only after Hayabusa2 lifted back up from t he asteroid and resumed communications with t he control room.
Research director Takashi Kubota told reporters that the touchdown operation was “more than perfect.”
And Tsuda, with a grin, said he rated it “1000 points out of 100”.
“The probe moved perfectly and the team’s preparation work was perfect,” he said.
Pristine samples
The brief landing on Thursday is the second time Hayabusa2 has touched down on the desolate asteroid Ryugu, some 300 million kilometres (185 million miles) from Earth.
Ry ugu, which means “Dragon Palace” in Japanese, refers to a cast le at t he bottom of the ocean i n an ancient Japanese ta le.
The complex multi-year Hayabusa2 mission has also involved sending rovers and robots down to the surface.
Thursday’s touchdown was intended to collect pristine materia ls from beneath t he surface of t he asteroid t hat could prov ide insights into what t he solar system was like at its birt h, some 4.6 billion years ago.
To get at those crucial materials, in April an “impactor” was fired from Hayabusa2 towards Ryugu in a risky process that created a crater on the asteroid’s surface and stirred up material that had not previously been exposed to the atmosphere.
Hayabusa2’s first touchdown was in February, when it landed briefly on Ryugu and fired a bullet into the surface to puff up dust for collection, before blasting back to its holding position.
The second touchdown required specia l preparations because any problems could mean the probe would lose t he precious materia ls a lready gat hered during its first landing.
‘The world is watching’
A photo of the crater taken by Hayabusa2’s camera after the April blast showed that parts of the asteroid’s surface are covered with materials that are “obviously different” from the rest of the surface, mission manager Makoto Yoshikawa told reporters before the latest touchdown.
Scientists are hoping the probe will have collected unidentified materials believed to be ejecta from the blast after landing briefly in an area some 20m away from the centre of the crater.
“It would be safe to say that extremely attractive materials are near the crater,” Tsuda said before the landing.
The touchdown is the last major part of Hayabusa2’s mission, and when the probe returns to Earth next year to drop of f its samples, scientists hope to learn more about t he histor y of t he solar system and even the origin of life on Eart h.
The Hayabusa2 mission has attracted international attention, with Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May sending a video to the probes team ahead of the landing.
“The world is watching. We love you, ta ke care Hayabusa2,” t he musician told t he team.
Hayabusa2 is the successor to Ja xa’s first asteroid explorer, Hayabusa – Japanese for fa lcon, which returned with dust samples from a smaller, potato-shaped asteroid in 2010.
It was hailed as a scientific triumph despite various setbacks during its epic sevenyear odyssey.