Ryugu was discovered by the US LINEAR project on 05/10/1999 from one of our telescope facilities in New Mexico. Ryugu is located between Earth and Mars, about 170 million miles from here, is roughly 1km/.6mi in diameter, and orbits our Sun once every 474days, moving along that orbital path at about 70,000mph (Earth's is about 67,000mph), and it has an axial rotation of about once every 7.5hrs (compared to Earth's 24hr cycle). Here's where it's located and the orbits:



It took about 3.5yrs for the Hayabusa2 spacecraft to catch up with Ryugu, and on 09/21/2018 it lowered itself to 55m above the surface of the asteroid and deployed the Minerva I and II rovers, which have since successfully landed and beamed back photos and other data. One of the probes will eventually gather physical samples and blast those back to Earth in some sort of canister/capsule thing. Here are the first close-ups of the asteroid:





So, not even twenty years ago we discovered this 1km diameter rock in space, then Japan built the spacecraft and probes and launched it, then it took 3.5yrs to travel the 170 million miles, and now the probes have landed and are beaming back info.

Not bad, humans, not bad at all.

Space exploration is wonderfully fascinating. The original moon landing happened less than a year before I was born (and our Moon is less than 300,000mi from Earth), and in my lifetime we've done all of this, and we're barely even trying, and weren't even working particularly hard toward these goals for many years in between.

Impressive.

I like that the 2 'rovers' hop around the asteroid for more pictures & data.

Looking forward to see what data they get and that from the OSIRIS-REx Mission (similar US mission to the Bennu Asteriod)

I noticed that it intersects with our orbit twice in 474 days is this why they show more interest then let’s say Hailey’s comet?

Could this be the “comet”?

quote:

Originally posted by Ozarkwoods:
I noticed that it intersects with our orbit twice in 474 days is this why they show more interest then let’s say Hailey’s comet?

It would only be dangerous if its orbit were in the same plane as Earth's.

flashguy

IIRC, this particular asteroid was worthy of a visit to sample the rock itself and to test the technology that made this mission possible - for use in future missions. The hopping robots and their deployment, the cameras and all that, the capsule of samples that it's going to fire back to us, it's all new I believe. Plus one article said the chunk of rock itself is like getting a core sample from back in time or some such. Too small for weather, untouched, etc.

And it's possible to land on it, which was the point. Hailey's presents other challenges, I suppose. But I can't speak to their relative importance to one another, scientifically.

I know there are plans (dreams, maybe) to do similar landings and eventually mine minerals from other asteroids, I suspect this and similar missions are just the baby steps that are inevitable along that and any similar journey. This isn't the first time humans have landed something on an asteroid, but I think it's still in single digits overall...

"Armageddon." (The movie)

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:

quote:

Originally posted by Ozarkwoods:
I noticed that it intersects with our orbit twice in 474 days is this why they show more interest then let’s say Hailey’s comet?

It would only be dangerous if its orbit were in the same plane as Earth's.

flashguy

I'm going with "no". Even if it is completely perpendicular where it crosses twice there's still the possibility of the two bodies being in the same space at the same time.

I'm sure some wizard with a slide rule is already projecting orbits into the eons and we'll know whether that intersect occurs in 2020 or 45718, 3148395, etc. It's almost impossible to imagine the answer is never.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:...

I'm going with "no". Even if it is completely perpendicular where it crosses twice there's still the possibility of the two bodies being in the same space at the same time....

You see, there were these really big lizards roaming the earth, and one day... But they didn't have slide rules.

It'd be super cool if we could slow them down or get them parked by our new moon-base and just suck all the resources out of them.

quote:

Originally posted by Veeper:
It'd be super cool if we could slow them down or get them parked by our new moon-base and just suck all the resources out of them.

Tractor beam, Scotty!