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As part of the Hayabusa2 mission, Japan placed two jumper robots on the asteroid Ryugu. This is Japan's second mission on an asteroid, where it plans to return samples of Ryugu to Earth in the early 2020s. So that scientists can study the samples with more sophisticated instruments and discover some of the larger ones. scientific mysteries. Here is a transcript of the video.
On September 21, the Japanese space agency marked history. He became the first country to land not one, but two rovers on an asteroid. Already, unmanned rovers have returned the first images to the surface. And no, up to now, it seems that there are no foreign cities on its surface. But this mission, called Hayabusa2, could ultimately help solve one of the biggest scientific mysteries of all: Where does life come from on Earth?
Scientists have been studying asteroids for years. NASA, for example, landed his spaceship N.E.A.R Shoemaker on the asteroid Eros in 2001. But his Japanese space agency is the first to deploy a pair of rovers to explore the surface of an asteroid. Japan launched the Hayabusa2 mission in December 2014. It's been around 3.5 years now.
The probe met its target in June 2018. She photographed a series of images revealing the shape of the asteroid. The asteroid of choice was 162173 Ryugu or Ryugu for short. In Japanese, it refers to a magic underwater dragon palace. Now, the asteroid flies in space, around the sun for 16 months. Ideally between the orbits of the Earth and Mars.
This makes it an ideal target for the mission. Which, if all goes as planned, will return a sample of the asteroid on Earth in the early 2020s. As the spacecraft flew closer to the surface of the asteroid, it was preparing to deploy its two first unmanned rovers. But these guys are not your typical rover. They are slightly larger than the size of a large iPhone. Measuring only 7 by 18 centimeters. And they will not circulate on the surface of the asteroid. They will jump.
Yeah, you heard that right. Skipping. Japan has designed the rovers with a rotating cylinder inside which gives it the power to jump a few meters at a time. This reduces the risk of getting stuck on the rocky and uneven surface. But this is not without its own risks. Asteroids are relatively small and therefore have low gravitational pull. And even according to the standards for asteroids, Ryugu is tiny. Its width is less than one kilometer, which does not exceed a few blocks. So, if the rovers go up too high, they could potentially fly into space. But until here, the mission looks good.
The rovers have already made their first jump. It may be the first time Japan lands on an asteroid, but it will not be the last. These two rovers are only the first of four that Japan aims to land on Ryugu. The other two vehicles are expected to land in the next year. In the process, Japan hopes to collect and return a sample of Ryugu to Earth. So that scientists can study it in more detail, looking for traces of water and organic matter. If it turns out that asteroids such as Ryugu contain similar materials that we see on Earth, this would be solid evidence of the idea that life on Earth would have been caused by asteroids there billions of years ago. But it is a mystery that we can only answer if we study asteroids directly.
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