The work of scientists from the Japanese space agency broadcast on television, December 5, 2020. -
Ryohei Moriya / AP / SIPA
The refrigerator-sized Japanese probe Hayabusa-2 launched in December 2014 has successfully completed its first mission.
It dropped on earth during the night of Saturday to Sunday precious samples collected on an asteroid located some 300 million kilometers away.
Scientists hope they will provide clues to the solar system when it was born 4.6 billion years ago.
Photographs of the fireball captured on-site.
Welcome back.
(Team M Collection) # Hayabusa2 # は や ぶ さ 2 # AsteroidExplorerHayabusa2 # HAYA2Report pic.twitter.com/b2ThFi33q5
- HAYABUSA2 @ JAXA (@ haya2e_jaxa) December 5, 2020
The capsule containing a hundred milligrams of particles from the asteroid Ryugu - "the dragon's palace" in Japanese, entered the Earth's atmosphere shortly before 2 a.m. on Sunday Japanese time (6.30 p.m. in Paris on Saturday), creating a fireball similar to the trail of a shooting star.
"She's finally back after six years," a commentator from the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) said as officials from the agency caught on camera loudly expressing their joy.
Dropping in Australia
The capsule made landfall in the desert in southern Australia where it will be recovered in an area covering some 100 square kilometers thanks to the signal emitted by its beacons.
Protected from sunlight and radiation inside the capsule, the samples will be collected, processed and then sent by air to Japan.
Half of the material will be shared between Jaxa, NASA and international organizations, and the rest will be kept for future study as analytical technology advances.
After this express delivery, the work of the probe is not finished: scientists from the Japanese space agency plan to extend its mission by more than ten years by targeting two new asteroids.
Hayabusa-2 will first perform a series of orbits around the sun for about six years to record data on dust in interplanetary space and observe exoplanets.
The probe will then approach its first target in July 2026. While remaining at a certain distance from the asteroid 2001 CC21, scientists nevertheless hope that it will be able to photograph it "while passing at high speed".
2031 target
Hayabusa-2 will then head towards its main target, 1998 KY26, a spherical asteroid with a diameter of only 30 meters.
When the probe reaches it in July 2031, it will be about 300 million kilometers from Earth.
But the extension of its mission involves risks, in particular that of seeing the probe's equipment deteriorate in deep space.
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