A Japanese spacecraft has just blown a new crater into an asteroid

A Japanese spacecraft about 186 million kilometers from Earth dropped a can of explosive on an asteroid last night, digging a crater on a rough surface. Finally, the spacecraft will inspect the new crater and even take a sample, which will help scientists learn more about the asteroid's interior.

The survey vehicle is Hayabusa2, a satellite operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Launched in 2014, Hayabusa2 is on a near Earth asteroid, Ryugu, who has been standing around the object since last year. The mission of the spacecraft is simple: take samples of Ryugu's material and bring them back to Earth for further study. But the spaceship uses some unique methods to reach its goal, and it dropped robots on the asteroid en route.

In September, Ryugu's first major maneuver was to deploy a pair of cylindrical robotic rovers on the asteroid that bounced off the rock surface to collect data and images from Ryugu. A few weeks later, he dropped a robotic box on Ryugu, who also studied the asteroid's terrain. Finally, in February, Hayabusa2 got what he was looking for: he slowly lowered to the surface of the asteroid and shot the rock with a bullet-shaped projectile, throwing objects into the vehicle's collector .

Last night, Hayabusa2 was instructed to hit the asteroid with a little more force. After being slowly lowered again to the Ryugu surface, Hayabusa2 sent a cone-shaped can filled with small explosives to the surface, and then moved to a safe distance to avoid debris. The device, called the Small Cabin Impactor (SCI), was deployed from the Space Shuttle as planned, and Hayabusa2 even took a photo showing that he was heading towards the asteroid.

Explosives from SCI then exploded above Ryugu's surface, sending a copper plate firing at the asteroid at a speed of 2 km / s. The size of the resulting crater will be determined by the type of material impacted by the copper plate. Under the right circumstances, the crater could have a width of about 32 feet.

Hayabusa2 filmed all the action. When it was less than a mile away, the spacecraft deployed a camera to capture the explosion, observing the creation of the crater and resulting debris. The images will help the Hayabusa2 team find the crater later, as the spacecraft moves back to the target area.

Shortly after, after all the debris has settled, Hayabusa2 will return to the area she has just covered. The mission team will then decide if they want to take a sample from the crater created by the probe. If such an operation is deemed too dangerous, Hayabusa2 may instead take a sample of another crater already present on the asteroid.

Getting a sample of the interior of the new crater would be ideal, as this would allow Hayabusa2 to collect materials inside the asteroid that was not exposed to it. space for billions of years. The main purpose of visiting Ryugu and extracting pieces of it is to learn more about the types of materials that existed at the beginning of the solar system. Asteroids are thought to be the first vestiges of our cosmic neighborhood that have remained relatively unchanged since the formation of planets 4.5 billion years ago. Ryugu's materials are perhaps the most unchanged because they have not been worn or altered by the space environment.

The materials contained in this new crater may contain detailed secrets about the types of materials that existed long ago, which could tell us a little more about how the Earth and the life that came from it appeared. . We believe that asteroids may have brought essential materials and essential elements to the life of our planet. This crater could therefore help us determine what the asteroids could have provided to a young Earth a long time ago.