Japan creates its first artificial crater on an asteroid

Japanese scientists have managed to create what they called the first-ever artificial crater on an asteroid, a step forward to unravel the evolution of the solar system, the agency's Thursday announced. 39; space.

The announcement comes after the Hayabusa2 probe fired an explosive device at the Ryugu asteroid earlier this month to blow up a crater on the surface and pick up some equipment, with the goal of revealing more of the objects. information about the origins of life on Earth.

Yuichi Tsuda, project manager Hayabusa2 of the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA), told reporters he confirmed the crater from images captured by the probe located at 1700 meters from the surface of the asteroid.

"Creating an artificial crater with an impactor and observing it in detail afterwards is a first global attempt," Tsuda said.

"It's a big hit."

NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft successfully created an artificial crater on a comet in 2005, but only for observation purposes.

Masahiko Arakawa, a professor from Kobe University involved in the project, said it was "the best day of his life".

"We can see a hole as big as we expected," he said, adding that the images showed a crater 10 meters in diameter.

JAXA scientists had previously predicted that the crater could reach 10 meters in diameter if the surface was sandy, or three meters so rocky.

"The surface is filled with blocks, but we have created a crater of this size, which could mean a scientific mechanism we do not know or anything special about Ryugu's materials," said the professor.

The purpose of the crater blasting on Ryugu is to emerge from the surface of the asteroid "fresh" materials that could illuminate the beginnings of the solar system.

It is thought that the asteroid contains relatively large amounts of organic matter and water for about 4.6 billion years, when the solar system was born.

In February, Hayabusa2 briefly touched Ryugu and fired a shot into the area to blow dust before returning it to his home position.

The mission, priced at around 30 billion yen ($ 270 million), was launched in December 2014 and is expected to return to Earth with its samples in 2020.

The photos of Ryugu – which means "dragon palace" in Japanese and refers to a castle at the bottom of the ocean in an ancient Japanese tale – show that the asteroid has a rough surface full of rocks.

© 2019 AFP