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The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency announced Thursday that 10 smaller artificial craters have been discovered on an asteroid, in addition to the largest crater produced by its space probe Hayabusa2 last month as part of its mission to better understand the origin and the evolution of the solar system life.
When the asteroid explorer fired a metal object at the Ryugu asteroid on April 5 to create a crater in a world premiere, scattered fragments of the impactor formed from the metal. Other craters, about 1 meter in diameter each, said JAXA.
The newly discovered craters, as well as the first found earlier – measuring approximately 10 meters in diameter and 2 to 3 meters deep – should help the agency examine the surface of the asteroid and estimate its age, according to JAXA.
The agency will continue its research on the surface of Ryugu, about 340 million kilometers from the Earth, in the hope of having found in June a site conducive to the collection of additional surface samples by Hayabusa2 as a result of the first procedure of this type in February.
Launched in December 2014 from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture, Hayabusa2 reached Ryugu last June and is expected to return to Earth by the end of 2020 after completing its mission.
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