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Japan (Very Carefully) Drops Plastic Explosives Onto An Asteroid

Author: Geoff Brumfiel / Source: wesm913.org

Japan's Hayabusa2, seen in this illustration, has been probing the asteroid Ryugu since 2018. The spacecraft is collecting samples that will be returned to Earth.
Japan’s Hayabusa2, seen in this illustration, has been probing the asteroid Ryugu since 2018. The spacecraft is collecting samples that will be returned to Earth.

Early Friday morning, Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft detonated an explosive device over a small asteroid.

The goal was to create a fresh crater that will later be studied by the spacecraft.

Researchers watched from mission control in Sagamihara, Japan, and clapped politely as Hayabusa2 released an experiment known as the Small Carry-on Impactor. The device consisted of a copper disk packed with HMX high-explosive. Once the mothership had safely moved out of the line of fire, the impactor apparently detonated, firing the disk into the side of the asteroid. A camera released by Hayabusa2

, which sent a stream of ejecta into space.

“It went flawlessly,” says Harold C. Connolly Jr., a geologist at Rowan University in New Jersey and a co-investigator on Hayabusa2.

[SCI] The deployable camera, DCAM3, successfully photographed the ejector from when the SCI collided with Ryugu’s surface. This is the world’s first collision experiment with an asteroid! In the future, we will examine the crater formed and how the ejector dispersed. pic.twitter.com/eLm6ztM4VX

— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa)

The asteroid is a barren piece of rock known as Ryugu, which measures less than a mile across and orbits between the Earth and Mars. Researchers believe Ryugu may be similar to the early space rocks that merged to make planets, including Earth.

“These particular asteroids are the precursors to what Earth was made from,” Connolly says. Ryugu is rich in carbon, and minerals on its surface contain water and so-called prebiotic compounds that could have started life on…

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