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It's a great day for space: launches, tests, orbits, and now a distant probe is going shoot an asteroid with his space rifle and make a new crater to play in. It is Hayabusa 2, the ambitious and very successful Japanese sample return mission in an object called Ryugu.
Launched in 2014, Hayabusa 2 moved to the Ryugu area for several months and conducted a series of surveys. He has four small landers on board, two of which he deposited at the end of last year and who were jumping happily around the asteroid.
In February, the craft landed on the surface, raising the dust considerably, but nothing resembles what will happen when it will shoot an old bullet into the surface at 4,400 mph. with the small cab cabin impactor. Here is a test of the firing configuration in a laboratory, here on Earth, on a Ryugu type substrate:
Now imagine what happens to an asteroid with very little gravity – dust and stains will fly in all directions. In fact, the robots on the surface all retreated far away from the impact site so as not to cover themselves with debris.
Then, in a few weeks, the landers and Hayabusa 2 will study the new crater and the layers of dust and exposed rocks. After collecting some samples, the machine will return home late this year.
This "crater generation" operation will take place later in the evening and the images should arrive very soon – the team has already released many gorgeous images of Ryugu (as well as stunning children's drawings). In fact, you should be able to follow more or less in real time below, starting at 6 pm Pacific Time:
And if you want to know how the spacecraft behaves, at any time, for example, you can still connect to the Haya2NOW web application, which provides all relevant details as soon as they are received. As it is practical!
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