The Coffee House

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45598156

Japan's space agency (JAXA) has made history by successfully landing two robotic explorers on the surface of an asteroid.

The two small "rovers", which were despatched from the Hayabusa-2 spacecraft on Friday, will move around the 1km-wide space rock known as Ryugu.

The asteroid's low gravity means they can hop across it, capturing temperatures and images of the surface.

"Both rovers are in good condition," the agency confirmed on Saturday.

JAXA proudly tweeted pictures from the rovers, which reached Earth via the spaceship Hayabusa-2.

 

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Congrats to them !

As in the previous Hayabusa mission, the plan is to collect samples from this asteroid - which, if all goes well, will be returned to Earth in 2020. Let's hope this mission is as successful as the previous one was!

And, it's sent back some near pictures of the asteroid's surface:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45667350


(Click to enlarge; Source: JAXA, above article)

no surprise it looks like a beach in space, rocks everywhere oddly well packed for such low gravity.

That’s incredible! I missed this topic somehow.

(09-28-2018, 03:47 AM)GrieferLord Wrote: [ -> ]no surprise it looks like a beach in space, rocks everywhere oddly well packed for such low gravity.

Yeah, the first Hayabusa mission found a similar thing. It visited an even smaller asteroid, which was also covered in a layer of broken rock and debris (known as 'regolith'). I'm not sure how it manages to stay on the surface: it could just be that nothing is pushing it off (yes, the asteroid is hurtling through outer space at break-neck speed; however, since outer space is near enough a vacuum, there won't be any drag to strip away these broken pieces of rock).

Anyway, the mission seems to be going well. The probe has landed on the asteroid, and set about collecting rock samples:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47293317

Let's hope they come back safely!

Well, before heading back to Earth, the probe has made a second landing on the asteroid, to pick up more rocks:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48946603

I'm not sure why it couldn't just pick them up all in one go (maybe they wanted to study different parts of the asteroid?) - but, either way, I'm glad it's all going according to plan!