A Capsule Containing Bits Of An Asteroid Is Plummeting To Earth

Enlarge this image

This computer-generated image shows the Hayabusa2 spacecraft above the asteroid Ryugu. This weekend, the sample collected by the spacecraft is expected to fall to Earth after a six-year mission.

ISAS/JAXA via AP

hide caption

toggle caption

ISAS/JAXA via AP

Enlarge this image

JAXA crew members set up antennas last month in Woomera, South Australia. The setup is meant to help researchers locate a proverbial needle in a haystack after the sample lands.

JAXA via AP

hide caption

toggle caption

JAXA via AP

Space
You’ve Been To Mars And A Comet; Japan’s Space Agency Invites You To An Asteroid

Space
Japan (Very Carefully) Drops Plastic Explosives Onto An Asteroid

Space
Chinese Chang’e-5 Is Returning From Moon With Rocks, Left A Flag To Celebrate

On its return trip, the capsule containing the sample separated from Hayabusa2 more than 130,000 miles from Earth — a distance that would get you more than halfway from your home to the moon. And JAXA researchers are aiming to land the little pod inside an area spanning about 40 square miles in the Australian Outback.

As if that weren’t enough, they will also have to find the darn thing, which is expected to contain material weighing just one gram. It’s a search that is expected to require at least five antennas, a helicopter and the support of the Australian space agency and the country’s military.

The specimens, which are estimated to weigh 1 gram in total, include the world’s first subsurface asteroid sample. Scientists hope the primordial materials will help further research into the origin of life on Earth and the evolution of the solar system.

Masaki Fujimoto, deputy director-general of JAXA’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, told reporters on Friday local time that researchers will move quickly to get the capsule, once located, over to an Australian Department of Defense facility for inspection.

«We don’t want to miss anything, he said at a briefing, according to a translation by Japanese media, «so as soon as the capsule is back to the headquarter building we can extract the gas sample so the best science can be obtained from the precious sample we are returning from asteroid Ryugu.

This will not be the end of the line for Hayabusa2, however. The spacecraft will not follow the capsule back to Earth but rather continue on to another asteroid traveling between Earth and Mars, which it is expected to reach by 2031.