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Asteroid dust collected by Japan probe arrives on Earth

Sara HUSSEIN, Kyoko HASEGAWA

Sat, 5 December 2020, 7:49 pm GMT+1·3-min read

Asteroid dust collected by Japan probe arrives on Earth

A capsule carrying asteroid samples that was dropped off by the Hayabusa-2 probe entered the atmosphere just before 2:30 am Japan time (1730 GMT Saturday), creating a shooting-star-like fireball as it entered Earth's atmosphere

In a streak of light across the night sky, samples collected from a distant asteroid arrived on Earth on Sunday after being dropped off by Japanese space probe Hayabusa-2.

Scientists hope the precious samples, which are expected to amount to no more than 0.1 grams of material, could help shed light on the origin of life and the formation of the universe.

The capsule carrying samples entered the atmosphere just before 2:30 am Japan time (1730 GMT), creating a shooting-star-like fireball as it entered Earth's atmosphere.

"Six years and it has finally come back to Earth," an official narrating a live broadcast of the arrival said, as images showed officials from Japan's space agency JAXA cheering and pumping their fists in excitement.

The capsule separated from Hayabusa-2 on Saturday, when the refrigerator-sized space probe that launched into space in 2014 was 220,000 kilometres away from Earth.

It landed in the southern Australian desert, where it will be recovered from an area spanning some 100 square kilometres, with search crews guided by beacons emitted as the capsule descended.

The samples were collected from the asteroid Ryugu, some 300 million kilometres from Earth (185 million miles) during two crucial phases of Hayabusa-2's mission last year.

The probe collected both surface dust and pristine material from below the surface that was stirred up by firing an "impactor" into the asteroid.

The material collected from the asteroid is believed to be unchanged since the time the universe was formed.

Larger celestial bodies like Earth went through radical changes including heating and solidifying, changing the composition of the materials on their surface and below.

But "when it comes to smaller planets or smaller asteroids, these substances were not melted, and therefore it is believed that substances from 4.6 billion years ago are still there," Hayabusa-2 mission manager Makoto Yoshikawa told reporters before the capsule arrived.