TOKYO (AP) – Japanese space agency officials said Tuesday they have found more than the expected amount of soil and gases inside a small capsule that the country’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft returned this month from a distant asteroid, a mission that they praised as a milestone on the planet. research.
The Japanese aerospace exploration agency said its staff initially saw some black particles sitting at the bottom of the capsule’s sampler when they removed the container on Monday. On Tuesday, scientists found more soil and gas samples in a compartment that stored those from the first of Hayabusa’s two touchdowns on the asteroid last year.
“We have confirmed a good amount of sand apparently collected from the asteroid Ryugu, along with gases,” Yuichi Tsuda, project manager of JAXA Hayabusa2, said in a video message during an online press conference. “Samples from outside our planet, which we have been dreaming of for a long time, are now in our hands.”
Tsuda described the successful return of the asteroid’s ground and gas samples as “an important scientific milestone.”
The 40-centimeter (15-inch-diameter) paella-shaped capsule was launched by Hayabusa2 from space to a predetermined location in a sparsely populated Australian desert on December 6 at the end of its outward journey. and a six-year return to Ryugu, more than 300 million kilometers (190 million miles) from Earth.
The capsule arrived in Japan last Tuesday for research that scientists hope will reveal the origins of the solar system and life on Earth.
Hirotaka Sawada, a JAXA scientist, was the first to look inside the capsule’s sample collector. Sawada said he was “almost speechless” with joy when he found that the samples inside included some that were, as expected, the size of the dust, but also some the size of pebbles. .
The soil samples in the photos shown in Tuesday’s presentation looked like piles of black coffee mixed with granules.
Sawada said the hermetically sealed capsule successfully returned asteroid gases that are clearly different from Earth’s air, a first sign of gas return from outer space. Kyushu University scientist Ryuji Okazaki said the gases could be related to asteroid soil minerals and that he hopes to identify the gaseous samples and determine their age.
Scientists hope that samples of the asteroid’s subsoil can provide information from billions of years ago that will not be affected by space radiation and other environmental factors. JAXA scientists say they are especially interested in the organic materials in the samples to find out how they were distributed in the solar system and whether they are related to life on Earth.
Sei-ichiro Watanabe, an earth and environment scientist at Nagoya University working with JAXA, said having more samples of material to work with than expected is great news, as it will expand the scope of the studies.
Samples were collected from two touchdowns Hayabusa2 made last year on Ryugu. Landings were more difficult than expected due to the asteroid’s extremely rocky surface.
The first landing collected samples from the surface of Ryugu and the second from the ground. Each was stored separately. JAXA said it will look for another compartment, which will be used for a second touchdown, next week, and will continue an initial review before further studies of the material.
Following studies in Japan, some of the samples will be shared with NASA and other international space agencies for further research from 2022.
Meanwhile, Hayabusa2 makes an 11-year expedition to another asteroid to try to study possible defenses against meteorites that could fly to Earth.