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The probe was launched in 2014
A Japanese probe has reached an asteroid 300 million kilometers away to gather information about the birth of the solar system and the origin of life after a journey of more than three years in deep space.
The Hayabusa2 probe has been installed in an observation position 20 kilometers (12 miles) above the Ryugu asteroid, officials said Wednesday. space exploration (JAXA).
"We have confirmed the arrival of Hayabusa2 to the Ryugu asteroid," JAXA said in a statement.
Ryugu is believed to contain relatively large amounts of organic matter and water, the stuff of life, and scientists hope that the samples taken from the asteroid will provide clues as to what gave birth to life on earth.
The JAXA announcement came just a few days before the UN International Asteroid Day, June 30, a global event aimed at raising public awareness of the dangers of the impact of air pollution. an asteroid and technological progress to counter such a threat.
Photos of Ryugu – which means "Dragon Palace" in Japanese, a castle at the bottom of the ocean in an ancient Japanese tale – show an asteroid-shaped top with a rough surface.
The probe will land on Ryugu in the coming months and will take samples "to clarify the origin of life," JAXA said in an earlier statement.
Hayabusa2, the size of a large refrigerator, is equipped with solar panels and is the successor to JAXA's first asteroid explorer, Hayabusa-Japanese for Falcon.
This probe came back from a smaller potato-shaped asteroid in 2010 with dust samples despite various setbacks during its seven-year epic odyssey and was hailed as a scientific triumph.
The Hayabusa2 mission costs 30 billion yen ($ 274 million) and the probe was launched in December 2014. It will remain on the asteroid for 18 months before returning to Earth with its samples at the end of 2020.
To collect his samples, he will release an "impactor" that will explode over the asteroid, pulling a two-kilogram (four-pound) copper object into the surface to create a crater a few meters in diameter.
From this crater, the probe will collect "fresh" materials not exposed to the millennia of wind and radiation, hoping for answers to some fundamental questions about life and the universe, especially if elements of the "cool" material are not present. space contributed to life on Earth.
The probe will observe the surface with its camera and detection equipment, but it will also drop tiny MINERVA-II mobile robots as well as a Franco-German landing set called Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) for Surface observation.
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