A small capsule from the Hayabusa2 space probe hopefully containing soil samples from a distant asteroid arrived in Japan on Tuesday for research into the origins of life and the evolution of the solar system.
Two days after being retrieved from the Australian desert, the capsule, carefully stored in a metal container, was transported by truck to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Sagamihara Campus in Kanagawa Prefecture from Tokyo's Haneda airport, where a chartered plane carrying it touched down early in the morning.
"The samples are now in a safe environment," JAXA Vice President Hitoshi Kuninaka said at a press conference after the capsule was brought into the facility at 11:27 a.m., with a crowd of excited researchers and local residents welcoming its arrival at the gate.
"We would like to conduct a thorough analysis," Kuninaka said. While the six-year mission has so far proceeded smoothly, he revealed that the agency had considered changing the date for retrieving the capsule due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"But we made the decision to show the world that we were ready to recover (the capsule) at any cost," he said.
A sealed container within the capsule, believed to be with samples from the Ryugu asteroid, about 300 million kilometers away from Earth, will also enable trapped gases to be analyzed.
As early as next week, JAXA will open the capsule in a vacuum at a special facility to prevent any potential contamination and confirm whether it has actually brought back samples from the asteroid.
As JAXA already knows that the asteroid is black, the agency said if the samples are the same color it is almost certain that they are from Ryugu.
"New science will start from here," Yuichi Tsuda, the Hayabusa2 project manager, said at the press conference.
"What had been on another (world) is now in front of our eyes. It's like a dream," Tsuda also told reporters when the capsule arrived at the agency's facility, adding Hayabusa2 "worked really hard," referring to the space probe, which is now on its next journey to a different asteroid.
Using a light microscope, JAXA plans to spend about six months looking into the volume, color and other characteristics of the samples.
The capsule, released from the space probe on Saturday afternoon, landed in a desert near the Woomera Prohibited Area, a remote Australian military and civil aerospace facility.
Gas samples believed to be from the asteroid were collected in a preliminary analysis conducted Monday in Australia, but Hayabusa2 mission manager Makoto Yoshikawa said JAXA cannot yet determine whether they are from Ryugu.
Yuichi Tsuda, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa2 project manager, speaks at a press conference in Sagamihara near Tokyo on Dec. 8, 2020, after the arrival of a capsule from the Hayabusa2 space probe at the agency's campus in the Kanagawa Prefecture city. The capsule landed in an Australian desert two days earlier. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo
(Photo by Mark Brake)(Kyodo)
A rocket carrying Hayabusa2 was launched from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center in December 2014 to look for clues about the formation of the solar system and the origin of life.
The Ryugu asteroid's subsurface rock, unaffected by solar flares, is believed to have remained in the same state since the solar system was formed 4.6 billion years ago.
The probe reached Ryugu in June 2018 before touching down on it twice the following year. It apparently succeeded in collecting the first-ever asteroid subsurface samples after creating an artificial crater by shooting a copper projectile at the asteroid, according to JAXA.
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