Asteroids and comets visited by spacecraft. (Credit: Planetary Society – Emily Lakdawalla)
by Douglas Messier Managing Editor
NASA announced on Monday that it is planning to spend $500 to $600 million to develop the NEO Surveillance Mission that would begin hunting for large asteroids and comets that could strike Earth.
Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, made the announcement during a meeting of the Planetary Science Advisory Committee held in Washington, D.C. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) would lead the project, which would launch around 2025.
The separation image of the 2nd target marker, TM-C!
Separation time: 2019/9/17 at 01:24 JST Altitude: 1km
This is an overlay of images taken every 4s (for ~1min) while the spacecraft ascends at 11cm/s. TM descent speed is still almost zero. (📷 JAXA, Chiba Inst. Tech & collab) pic.twitter.com/x3tE5BZI1J
WASHINGTON, DC (NASA PR) — Two relatively medium-sized asteroids will fly safely past Earth overnight Sept. 13-14 (Eastern U.S. time). NASA is tracking the objects, but orbit calculations ruled out any chance that the objects could pose a threat to our planet.
ESA’s Asteroid Impact Mission is joined by two triple-unit CubeSats to observe the impact of the NASA-led Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) probe with the secondary Didymos asteroid, planned for late 2022. (Credit: ESA – ScienceOffice.org)
ROME (ESA PR) — Asteroid researchers and spacecraft engineers from the US, Europe and around the world will gather in Rome next week to discuss the latest progress in their common goal: an ambitious double-spacecraft mission to deflect an asteroid in space, to prove the technique as a viable method of planetary defence.
This combined mission is known as the Asteroid Impact Deflection Assessment, or AIDA for short. Its purpose is to deflect the orbit of the smaller body of the double Didymos asteroids between Earth and Mars through an impact by one spacecraft. Then a second spacecraft will survey the crash site and gather the maximum possible data on the effect of this collision.
These detailed views of four potential sample sites on asteroid Bennu (complete with boulders, craters and other geological features) are based on a series of measurements taken by the OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter (OLA), the Canadian laser instrument aboard NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Image creation: Michael Daly, Centre for Research in Earth and Space Science, York University (Credit: NASA/University of Arizona/Canadian Space Agency/York University/MDA)
Longueuil, Quebec (CSA PR) –– A made-in-Canada laser aboard NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has produced high-resolution topographic maps of the four locations on asteroid Bennu that mission scientists have identified as candidates for sample collection.
This image shows boulder formations on asteroid Bennu’s surface. It was taken by the PolyCam camera on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on April 11, 2019 from a distance of 2.8 miles (4.5 km). (Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona)
Greenbelt, Md. (NASA PR) — Working with NASA’s OSIRIS-REx team, the International Astronomical Union’s Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN) approved the theme “birds and bird-like creatures in mythology” for naming surface features on asteroid (101955) Bennu.
Artificial crater created by Hayabusa 2 on asteroid Ryugu (Credit: JAXA, University of Tokyo, Kochi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji University, University of Aizu, AIST)
by Douglas Messier Managing Editor
Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft is not scheduled to return its precious cargo of soil samples of asteroid Ryugu to Earth for 16 more months, but it has already begun to pack up for home.
“In an operation today (August 26), the sample catcher was stored in the re-entry capsule (see figure). The sampler and capsule teams gathered to watch and the operation was completed successfully. The capsule is now ready for Earth return!” JAXA tweeted.
The asteroid is similar to carbonaceous, 4.5 billion year old meteorites found in collections on Earth.
Ryugu has numerous cavities.
COLOGNE, Germany (DLR PR) — In the summer of 2018, the asteroid Ryugu, which measures only approximately 850 metres across, was visited by the Japanese Hayabusa2 spacecraft. On board was the 10-kilogram German-French Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) – a lander no bigger than a microwave oven and equipped with four instruments.
Artificial crater on asteroid Ryugu with names. (Credit: JAXA, University of Tokyo, Kochi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji University, University of Aizu, AIST)
TOKYO (JAXA PR) — The following nicknames are being used for the area around the artificial crater:
From the folktale of the “rolling rice ball”. This was chosen as the boulders in this vicinity are shaped like Japanese rice balls and may roll down into the crater. The crater will also continue to be referred to as the “SCI crater”, depending on the situation.
Iijima boulder
In memory of Yuichi Iijima. Dr Iijima worked to gain the cooperation from universities outside JAXA during the start-up of the Hayabusa2 Project and so laid the foundation for Project’s success. In particular, in order to maximise the scientific results from the impact experiment, he worked hard across different fields and focussed on the proposal and development for the digital deployable camera for scientific observation (DCAM3). Dr Iijima passed away on December 7, 2012.
Okamoto boulder
In memory of Chisato Okamoto. Dr Okamoto was one of the core members of the Hayabusa2 sampler development team and energetically repeated laboratory experiments in preparation for collecting samples on Ryugu. She was also a member of the impact experiment team and played a central role in the simulation of the asteroid surface conditions used for the impact experiment in Kamioka. Dr Okamoto passed away on July 25, 2018.
Onigiri boulder
An onigiri is a Japanese rice ball (sometimes the shape is triangular) and resembles this boulder. (Both omusubi and onigiri mean rice ball.)
TOKYO (JAXA PR) — This report concerns the current status of the return and recovery plan of the Hayabusa2 sample return capsule.
At the end of 2020, Hayabusa2 plans to return to the Earth with the
samples collected from asteroid Ryugu. As with the recovery of the first
Hayabusa in 2010, JAXA is currently working with the Australian
Government to support the recovery of the Hayabusa2 re-entry capsule in
2020 at the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA) located in the outback desert
of South Australia.
Figure 2: Touchdown image overlapped with the planned touchdown site. The white dot at the end of the arrow is the target marker. (Credit： JAXA, University of Tokyo, Kochi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji University, University of Aizu, AIST)
CANBERRA (Australian Space Agency PR — To learn more about the solar system’s origin and evolution, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is investigating typical types of asteroids. Analysing samples from asteroids enables us to study organic matter and water in the solar system.
Pictured are the four candidate sample collection sites on asteroid Bennu selected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. Site Nightingale (top left) is located in Bennu’s northern hemisphere. Sites Kingfisher (top right) and Osprey (bottom left) are located in Bennu’s equatorial region. Site Sandpiper (bottom right) is located in Bennu’s southern hemisphere. In December, one of these sites will be chosen for the mission’s touchdown event. (Credits: NASA/University of Arizona)
GREENBELT, Md. (NASA PR) — After months grappling with the rugged reality of asteroid Bennu’s surface, the team leading NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission has selected four potential sites for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft to “tag” its cosmic dance partner.
ESA observation of 2019OK through ISON network (Credit: S. Schmalz/ISON)
PARIS (ESA PR) — On 25 July, an asteroid the size of a football field flew by Earth, coming within 65 000 km of our planet’s surface during its closest approach – about one fifth of the distance to the Moon.
The 100 m-wide asteroid dubbed ‘2019 OK’ was detected just days before
it passed Earth, although archival records from sky surveys show it had
previously been observed but wasn’t recognised as a near-Earth asteroid.
While 2019 OK illustrates the need for even more eyes on the sky, it also provides an opportunity to improve the asteroid recognising abilities of current and future telescopes, including ESA’s upcoming ‘Flyeye‘.
Close-up of the rock examined by MASCOT. The yellow arrow shows the direction of the incident light, and the dotted line separates the observed stone from the background. The red arrow shows the part of the rock where the radiometer MARA measured the surface temperature, the dotted line here shows a ledge. The scale in the center of the image shows the dimensions at this distance from the camera. The image was acquired by the DLR camera MASCAM on MASCOT. (Credit: MASCOT/DLR/JAXA)
COLOGNE, Germany (DLR) PR) — Ryugu and other asteroids of the common ‘C-class’ consist of more porous material than was previously thought. Small fragments of their material are therefore too fragile to survive entry into the atmosphere in the event of a collision with Earth.
This has revealed the long-suspected cause of the deficit of this meteorite type in finds on Earth. Researchers at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) have come to this conclusion in a scientific paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
This is a 10x speed animation captured with the small monitor camera (CAM-H) during 2nd touchdown. CAM-H was installed by public donation — thank you everyone! Image time: 2019/7/11 10:03:54 ~ 10:11:44 JST, at altitudes 8.5m ~ 150m. (📷 JAXA) https://t.co/ZrzegHABYUpic.twitter.com/owtaDxZx0m
