It was confirmed that a large number of particles were in the “Sample Room A” inside the collected capsule (approximately 11:10 JST on 12/15). This is considered an example of Dragon Palace’s first touchdown. The photo looks brown, but our team says “black”
;! The sample return was very successful! pic.twitter.com/34vIx17zOX— HAYABUSA2 @ JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) December 15, 2020
On December 5, the capsule landed in the Woomera exclusion zone in Australia, and the Japanese Aeronautics and Space Administration (JAXA) brought the capsule back to Japan.
The mission representative said: “We confirmed that the black grains believed to be Dragon Valley are inside.” Wrote on Twitter. “This is outside the main chamber, and there is likely to be particles attached to the entrance of the sample collector.”
The Hayabusa2 spacecraft was able to obtain these samples by grabbing rocks from the asteroid’s surface and shooting copper bullets into the asteroid to discover underground material. These two types of samples “should enable scientists to understand how the harsh space environment affects the surface of Longgu.”JAXA has not announced when scientists will begin analyzing this asteroid dust, but considering that “asteroids are primitive rubble left over from the formation of the solar system, scientists hope that studying these dragon ancient samples will help them understand the early days of the solar system.”
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Adam Bankhurst (Adam Bankhurst) is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and Twitch.
