A Japanese spacecraft that will return a sample of an asteroid to Earth has taken some fascinating initial images of the asteroid as it makes its feeler .
CalledHayabusa 2 , the space vehicle is head towards an asteroid called Ryugu , which is presently about280 million kilometers(175 million miles ) from Earth . It is currently less than 150 kilometers ( 93 miles ) from the asteroid , and is scheduled to near to about 20 kilometer ( 12 miles ) on June 27 .
Before then , it has been busy snap images as it come near , using its ONC - T camera ( Optical Navigation Camera – Telescopic ) . And these have begin to unveil some interesting feature article about the asteroid .
Already scientist have noticed its rather odd shape , which has been compared to a dumpling . It also had a bit of noticeable volcanic crater , including one particularly large one , and spins oppositely to its orbit around the Sun – known as retrograde revolution . And when the ballistic capsule arrive , there ’s going to be some middling amazing scientific discipline take place .
On circuit board the spacecraft are no fewer thanfive landersthat will be sent to the surface . One is a German - build twist called MASCOT , which has the power to derail once on the surface , and will perform airless - up observation .
Then there are three little rovers telephone MINERVA - II , which will reverberate along the aerofoil to study it up close . you could see sort of what they calculate like inthis prototype .
The fifth one is best of all , however . It ’s technically not a lander but an impactor , and it will be used to slam into the surface and form a crater . This will expose fresh material from inside the asteroid .
At a later date , Hayabusa 2 will fall to the surface , and collect material from this crater with a capture gimmick that call for fire a projectile into the ground and scooping up cloth .
As its name entail , this is the successor mission to the original Hayabusa , which in 2010 returned the first ever sample of an asteroid to Earth , after a fleck of atroubled mission . That missionary station also employ a lander , called MINERVA , which failed . And its ingathering system go too .
JAXA says it has learned from the mistakes from that mission , and is hopeful that everything will go a bite more swimmingly this time . InAugust , the spacecraft will descend to about 1 kilometer ( 0.6 miles ) from the surface .
In September or October it will bring out some or all of its Lander , aiming to depart with a sample in December 2019 and return to Earth in 2020 . Yes , it is a really awesome mission . Here ’s hoping it all goes to plan .
