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Japanese officials say they are satisfied with the quality of asteroid material collected by a spacecraft and returned to Earth.
Last week, officials from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, described the samples, which were collected from the asteroid Ryugu in July 2019. Ryugu is more than 300 million kilometers from Earth.
The unmanned Japanese Hayabusa2 spacecraft removed the material after detonating a hole in the asteroid.
The space agency said on July 2019 mission aimed to collect samples below the Ryugu surface. In an earlier operation in February 2019, Hayabusa2 collected material from another part of the asteroid.
The second collection effort resulted in 1-centimeter samples, JAXA officials said. The black material looked like coal and it was very hard, they added. It did not shatter when picked up or poured into another container.
Earlier this month, space officials described samples taken by Hayabusa2 on its first mission as smaller pieces of sand. They were collected from the surface of Ryugu.
Hayabusa2 was launched in December 2014 and arrived near Ryugu in June 2018. The Japanese space mission aims to use the samples to learn more about the formation of our solar system.
Tomohiro Usui of JAXA is a space materials scientist. He told The Associated Press that to get the second set of samples in July, Hayabusa2 used a impactor to explode below the asteroid’s surface. The aim was to collect materials unaffected by space radiation or other environmental conditions.
Usui noted that the size differences suggest different hardness of the bedrock of the asteroid. “One possibility is that the location of the second hit was a hard bedrock and larger particles broke and entered the compartment”Usui said.
JAXA is continuing its reviews of asteroid samples ahead of more comprehensive studies next year. Following studies in Japan, some of the samples will be shared with the US space agency NASA and other international space agencies for further research.
Asteroids orbit the sun but are much smaller than planets. They are among the oldest objects in the solar system and can help scientists better understand how the Earth has developed over time. Asteroid samples may give researchers a rare chance to study these mysterious rocky objects.
Hayabusa2 is now on another mission to a smaller asteroid, called 1998KY26. JAXA expects the plane to take 11 years to reach this asteroid. Hayabusa2’s new mission aims to explore possible ways of preventing meteorites to hit the Earth.
The only other country that has successfully collected an asteroid sample is the United States. NASA announced last month that its Osiris-Rex spacecraft had completed the sampling operation on asteroid Bennu. NASA said it was happy the spacecraft collected more samples than expected.
I am Bryan Lynn.
The Associated Press and Reuters reported on this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the reports for VOA Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.
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Words in this story
asteroid – not. one of the thousands of small planets that revolve around the sun
mission – not. a flight by an aircraft or spacecraft to perform a specific task
coal – not. a hard black material made by burning wood with a small amount of air
impactor – not. an object (like a meteorite) that collides with another body
bedrock – not. the solid rock that lies below the surface of the ground
compartment – not. an enclosed space or area that is usually part of something larger and is often used to contain a specific thing
meteorite – not. a piece of rock or metal that has fallen to the ground from space: a meteor that reaches the surface of the Earth without burning entirely
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