Astronomy: First look at Ryugu sample
Two papers reporting on the results of analysis of the first material brought back to Earth from the carbon-rich asteroid Ryugu will be published in Nature Astronomy.Carbon-rich asteroids provide clues about the early history of the solar system and the formation of organic and hydrous minerals that are constituents of life.
Ryugu is a carbon-rich, diamond-shaped near-Earth asteroid with a diameter of approximately one kilometer. In December 1, 2020 grams of material collected from the surface of Ryugu was brought back to Earth by the Hayabusa12 spacecraft.
This time, Toru Yada and his colleagues at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency are the first of two papers analyzing a sample of Ryugu, and this sample is very dark (hit an asteroid). It reflects only 2% of the light), and its void ratio is 1%, which is higher than any asteroid studied so far.In another paper, Cédric Pilorget et al. Determined the composition of a sample using a microscope that can capture images at different spectral wavelengths of visible and infrared light.As a result, it became clear that this sample consisted of a clay-like hydration composition in which various organic substances were embedded.However, some parts were composed of different substances such as carbonates and volatile compounds.
These findings reveal the microscopic inhomogeneous composition of Ryugu's sample and support the in situ observations made by Hayabusa2, indicating that Ryugu has a macroscopically uniform structure and composition. , Similar to carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, but suggests that it is darker, more porous and fragile.The authors found that the components of this sample are one of the most primitive materials available in the laboratory to date, the only collection for studying the origin and evolution of the solar system, as well as the future. We conclude that it shows a model of sample recovery from a typical planet.
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Reprinted from: "Astronomy: First look at a sample of Ryugu brought back'
