Stirling scientist on a mission to discover secrets of a primitive asteroid

Academic to study data taken from Hayabusa2 pioneering space mission, writes Angus Howarth

Ascientist based at a Scottish university is to begin analysing – and attempting to recreate – conditions on a primitive asteroid as part of a major international space mission led by the Japanese.

Dr Axel Hagermann, associate professor in environmental sciences at the University of Stirling, will spend the coming months assessing data from the Hayabusa2 mission.

The project aims to learn more about the origin and evolution of the solar system after Hayabusa2 landed on Ryugu last month.

Discovered in 1999, Ryugu is a primitive, C-type asteroid – meaning its composition includes water and organics – and is part of the Apollo group of asteroids, regarded as potentially hazardous due to their close proximity to Earth.

Hayabusa2 is the first mission to an asteroid of this nature and only the second ever to return a sample from an asteroid, and experts believe it will provide an important insight into conditions in the early solar system.

Dr Hagermann – the only Ukbased scientist on the mission – is co-investigator on the Thermal Infrared Imager, which will study the temperature and thermal inertia of the asteroid.

He will also help analyse data from a radiometer on the Germanbuilt lander, Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT), and use this information to recreate the exact conditions of the asteroid surface in the Planetary Ices Laboratory at Stirling.

Dr Hagermann, a geophysicist who focuses on ice and its physical properties, said: “As thermal measurements on an asteroid are very tricky, this approach allows us to ensure that the thermal measurements can be interpreted as accurately as possible.

“Thermal data from the asteroid surface are important because they allow us to constrain the surface material’s physical properties, confirm erosion – such as thermal cracking of rocks – and even explore minute changes in an asteroid’s orbit due to the way it re-radiates heat into space.”

Hayabusa2 is flown by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency in collaboration with the German Aerospace Agency and the National Centre for Space Studies in France.

0 Dr Axel Hagermann