In the capsule from the Hayabusa-2 probe, there were centimeter particles of the asteroid Ryugu, as well as a piece of metal

On: December 25, 2020

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) continues to extract soil samples from the asteroid Ryugu, obtained and delivered to Earth using the Hayabusa-2 space station. In addition to the fine grains of black sand originally found at the opening of the container, JAXA scientists recovered larger particles of soil.


“Curatorial work on the Ryugu samples is steadily progressing. On December 21st, Chambers B and C were opened and the contents of Chambers A and C were then transferred to the collection containers shown in the photograph. The largest particles in Chamber C are about 1 cm in diameter! , - reported on the agency's Twitter account. For comparison, the black grains of sand previously found at the opening of the container is about 1 mm in diameter. The weight of soil samples from the asteroid, delivered to Earth, is 5.4 g. This is much more than 0.1 g of soil, which was planned to be mined as part of the mission. 

A small piece of metal was found in a container with soil samples. According to scientists, they have not yet established its origin. At the same time, scientists suggested that this could be a particle of aluminum that separated from the sampler horn during sampling on an asteroid and got into the container along with the soil.

Earlier it was reported that the process of opening the container and sorting the samples will be quite lengthy and will take about six months. Therefore, it is quite possible that we still have interesting news about the samples obtained on the asteroid. As for the Hayabusa-2 probe, it is now on its way to the next space object - the asteroid 1998 KY26 with a diameter of only 30 m, which the probe is expected to approach in July 2031.

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