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Japan now has two rovers on an asteroid 280 million kilometers from the Earth and they have begun to send back the first images of life on a very lonely rock.
First of all, here is a shot of the Hayabusa2 probe retrieved in June from the 162173 Ryugu asteroid:
Hayabusa2 began her journey on December 3, 2014 and had to travel 3.2 billion kilometers to get to the rendezvous. Its mission: "to study the origin and the evolution of the solar system as well as materials for the life".
This is the first close-up of the Ryugu surface since Hayabusa2, taken 6 km above the asteroid on July 20:
He will now orbit Ryugu for a year and a half. Meanwhile, Hayabusa2 will drop four probes 60 meters from Ryugu's surface.
One of them fell last weekend and two of his vehicles MINERVA-II 18 cm in diameter. Here is the point of view of one of them – the blur at the top is Hayabusa2:
Here is another picture as the robot approached Ryugu:
Once they reached the surface, the two rovers began to move in jumps created by internal rotations and began using stereo and wide angle cameras, as well as thermometers.
Because of Ryugu's low gravity, each jump took 15 meters and 15 minutes to land. Here is a mid-range image that made mission spokesman Takashi Kubota emotional:
"From Ryugu's surface, MINERVA-II1 sent a radio signal to Earth via Hayabusa2," said Kubota.
"The image taken by MINERVA-II1 during a leap allowed me to relax with a dream of many years, and I was impressed by what we had accomplished in Japan.
"This is only a real charm of deep space exploration."
Who's next?
Another container will deploy another mobile, a Franco-German cooperation project called MASCOT.
Approximately 30 cm wide, it will use LEDs to illuminate and detect dust particles and will carry an infrared spectrometer, a magnetometer, a radiometer and a camera.
Once this is in progress, attention is focused on the big show. Around Autmun next year, Hayabusa2 will fire a 2kg copper "collision device" at Ryugu, trying to blow up a small crater on the surface.
If it works, Hayabusa2 himself can come down to the surface of Ryugu to analyze the underground composition of the asteroid and collect samples to bring them home.
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