The rocky & crazy surface & # 39; of Ryugu asteroid revealed in MASCOT Lander Images

BERLIN – A European space robot the size of a shoebox has discovered some surprises when he jumped on an asteroid last week.

In recently released images, the surface of the Ryugu asteroid is "even crazier" than expected, said Ralf Jaumann of the Planetary Research Institute of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), scientific director of the mission MASCOT. "Everything is covered with rough blocks and strewn with blocks," he added in a statement.

With a diameter of about 900 meters, Ryugu is one of the 17,000 known asteroids close to the Earth and consists of one of the most important materials of the solar system. The study of the properties and composition of the rock could help scientists understand the building blocks of planet formation. [These Asteroid Ryugu Photos from the MASCOT Landing are Amazing]

The researchers will be looking at the new MASCOT lander data manufactured by DLR in the weeks and months to come, but they are already starting to gather a clearer picture of the asteroid.

Paste the landing

In the early hours of October 3, about 300 million km from the Earth, MASCOT was deployed from Hayabusa2, the mother ship manufactured by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). [Japan’s Hayabusa2 Asteroid Ryugu Sample-Return Mission in Pictures]

"It was possible that MASCOT got stuck in its cavity [on Hayabusa2]"Tra-Mi Ho, DLR's MASCOT Project Manager, told Space.com at a meeting with reporters in Berlin on Friday, October 12th." When we received the separation signal, we were very happy. "

MASCOT then performed a free fall of 6 minutes at a height of 51 meters on the southern hemisphere of the asteroid. After analyzing the descent data, the mission's researchers believe that the robot struck a large boulder and bounced several times before landing on its back, like a turtle, with its camera pointed at the sky. MASCOT has neither wheels nor propulsion system, but thanks to its swingarm, the undercarriage has been able to recover with a little thrust.

"We were also very surprised that the rebound zone is more limited than expected, based on our simulations," said Ho. The gravity on Ryugu corresponds to a 66,500th of that of the Earth. A simple push of the surface is enough to land the lander (or potentially away from the asteroid).

The view of Wonderland

The battery life of MASCOT lasted a little longer than expected, allowing the robot to collect data in 17 hours and 7 minutes, or more than two days of asteroids, at the landing site dubbed "Alice's Wonderland". The LG underwent four experiments: the MASCAM camera and a radiometer, both made by the DLR; a magnetometer built by the Technical University of Braunschweig; and an infrared spectrometer manufactured by CNES, the French space agency.

MASCAM produced about 66 images with useful scientific content, said Nicole Schmitz, DLR researcher at MASCAM, at Space.com. Pointing rocks at some of the pictures, she said, "It's really remarkable how big some of them are."

"The appearance of the surface is extremely surprising, because we found on other bodies of the solar system that there was also a lot of dust and smooth on the surface," added Mr. Schmitz. "We do not really see any smooth parts on the asteroid right now … we will still need to put together what all of this means."

Although the surface of the asteroid appears as a ghostly gray in the images published by the DLR, its actual color is quite dark.

"The asteroid is extremely dark, close to black," Schmitz said. "When you see these images, we have improved the lighting because otherwise you would not see anything."

Hans-Ulrich Auster, a researcher at TU-Braunschweig, said that the magnetometer measurements indicated that the asteroid had a weak magnetic field and that the MASCOT landing behavior gave indications of the rigidity of the l & # 39; asteroid.

"We saw here that 90% of the energy was lost [during landing] so that might indicate that the surface is not as hard as stone, "said Auster.On the other hand, we can see that it's not as soft as a comet."

Auster noted that the Philae lander at the European Space Agency (ESA) had encountered a cigarette ash-like surface when deployed to the surface of a comet in 2014. But that was not the case on Ryugu. [Japan’s Hayabusa2 Asteroid Ryugu Sample-Return Mission in Pictures]

The most populated asteroid

The landing took place less than two weeks after Hayabusa2 rolled out two more tiny rovers, the MINERVA-II1A and the Japanese-made MINERVA-II1B.

"With MINERVA and MASCOT, three landing gear land for the first time on an asteroid and even jump to the surface by performing several types of experiments on quite remote areas, which gives you a more global context for the characteristics of the aircraft. Asteroid, "Ho said. "Definitely, it's the most populated asteroid in the history of space."

The $ 150-million Hayabusa2 mission was launched in space in December 2014. The spacecraft is carrying another small rover, the MINERVA-II2, which should be deployed to the surface. from Ryugu next year. Hayabusa2 should also collect a sample of Ryugu rock and send it back to Earth by the end of 2020, so that virgin cosmic material can be analyzed directly by scientists.

Follow Megan Gannon @meganigannon. Follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. Original article on Space.com.