Japan capsule with asteroid samples lands in Australia
TOKYO — Japan’s space agency said its helicopter search team has spotted a capsule, which is carrying asteroid samples that could explain the origin of life, that landed on a remote area in southern Australia as planned Sunday.
Hayabusa2 had successfully released the small capsule Saturday and sent it toward Earth to deliver samples from a distant asteroid that could provide clues to the origin of the solar system and life on our planet, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said.
Early Sunday the capsule briefly turned into a fireball as it reentered the atmosphere 75 miles above Earth. At about 6 miles aboveground, a parachute was to open to slow its fall and beacon signals were to be transmitted to indicate its location.
“It was great. It was a beautiful fireball, and I was so impressed,” said JAXA’s Hayabusa2 project manager Yuichi Tsuda as he celebrated the successful capsule return and safe landing from a command center in Sagamihara, near Tokyo. “I’ve waited for this day for six years.”
Beacon signals have been detected, suggesting a parachute has also successfully opened and the capsule landed safely in a remote area of Woomera, Australia, said JAXA official Akitaka Kishi.
About two hours after the capsule’s reentry, JAXA said its helicopter search team found the capsule in the planned landing area. A retrieval of the panshaped capsule, about 15 inches in diameter, will start after sunrise, Kishi said.
Hayabusa2 left the asteroid Ryugu, about 180 million miles away, a year ago. After it released the capsule, it moved away from Earth to capture images of the capsule descending toward the planet as it set off on a new expedition to another distant asteroid.
The capsule descended from 136,700 miles away in space after it was separated from Hayabusa2 in a challenging operation that required precision control.
JAXA staff were standing by and now they are springing into action to locate the capsule, which some people call a “treasure box.” JAXA officials said they hoped to retrieve the capsule by Sunday evening before a preliminary safety inspection at an Australian lab and bring it home this week.
Scientists say they believe the samples, especially ones taken from under the asteroid’s surface, contain valuable data unaffected by space radiation and other environmental factors. They are particularly interested in analyzing organic materials in the samples.
For Hayabusa2, it’s not the end of the mission it started in 2014. It is now heading to a small asteroid called 1998KY26 on a journey slated to take 10 years one way, for possible research including finding ways to prevent meteorites from hitting Earth.
So far, its mission has been fully successful. It touched down twice on Ryugu despite the asteroid’s extremely rocky surface, and successfully collected data and samples during the 11⁄ years it spent near Ryugu after arriving there in June 2018.
In its first touchdown in February 2019, it collected surface dust samples. In a more challenging mission in July that year, it collected underground samples from the asteroid for the first time in space history after landing in a crater that it created earlier by blasting the asteroid’s surface.
Ryugu in Japanese means “Dragon Palace,” the name of a sea-bottom castle in a Japanese folk tale.