After six years and millions miles of travel, the asteroid Ryugu sample capsule landed on Earth.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA = Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) has successfully completed its mission to bring a part of Ryugu asteroid back to Earth. A capsule carrying the sample was disconnected from the spacecraft Hyabusa2, when it was 130.000 miles from Earth, then landed with the help of a parachute and was recovered in remote Australia on Saturday.
According to one NPR report , this is the first time scientists will be able to examine an asteroid sample that has not been transformed or destroyed by the hot procedureof entering the Earth's atmosphere. Since space rocks (like Ryugu) are what eventually become planets, the ability to study this sample could provide clues to how Earth formed and to creation itself.
The sample is now in a laboratory in Australia, where scientists have already extracted and studied the gas surrounding organic matter.
This priceless specimen is really small: It weighs about one gram in total. However, size doesn't always matter. THE collection is the result of a six-year mission around Ryugu, a mile-wide asteroid that orbits the sun between Earth and Mars.
JAXA launched Hyabusa2 in 2014. It then spent three and a half years orbiting the sun to get into position. He arrived in Ryugu in 2018 and made two taxion its surface. To return the sample, Hyabusa2 came within 130.000 miles of Earth, and then the capsule detached to land in Australia. Hyabusa2 is now on its way to another asteroid. Nice trip!
