The Japanese space agency called JAXA made history Saturday by landing two unmanned rovers on the asteroid named "Ryugu". On Thursday evening the spacecraft holding the rovers called the "Hayabusa2" began its approach to the asteroid and approched with 100 meters. The spacecraft then dropped the rovers onto the asteroid taking pictures on the way down and when they landed. And accroding to a direct statement from JAXA, The two rovers are in good condition and are transmitting images and data." There are four sepcially designed cameras on the first rover and three on the second which are disgned to take stero images on the asteroid's surface. The asteroid itself is 1 kilometers wide and is shaped roughly like a diamond. The rock is expected to be rich in water and organic materials to confirm the speculations of life being brought to Earth by asteroids. In early October another rover will be launched from the spacecraft and later in the mission the spacecraft itself will land and blow a small crater into the surface for internal samples. The spacecraft is set to depart with the samples in Desember of 2019 and will arrive back at Earth by the end of 2020. This mission has made history for space programs around the world and space exploration as a whole. I think this will lead to many more advancments and make other space agencies pick up their slack.
(Picture from the surface of Ryugu, the white light is the sun and the ground the asteroid. The picture is blurring due to the rover hopping a bit when it was taken)
Read the whole story at CNN here
Questions for you!
1. In what ways do you think and speculate this will change space exploration?
I think with this new accomplished mission, we will be able to possibly stop any stroid that is headed right for Earth. Which is one of the ways we can go extinct.
2. Do you think other space agencies will be more active due to this? Why?
I think they will be even if it's just a little more effort. I think this because one nation always wants to be more technological than another.
Replies
Great job!
This mission is going to help them gather more data about asteroids and will help scientists learn if they need to improve their equipment for future space expolorations. I think it's going to help competition between other space agencies, and they will want to do better and explore more.
Yes, I think this will motivate other space agencies to step up their game and create missions for them to explore other planets and asteroids using new and improved equipment. Other space agencies will probably be watching the mission, too.
I think this will have a huge impact on Earth's supplies. In movies and books, you sometimes hear about asteroid mining for resources. This development will help get closer to advancements like that. I think other space agencies will be more active due to this because it's always a competition. First, it was who landed on the moon first, and now it might be first to land on Mars, but that might be far away in the future.
I like your spin on the idea of mining for rare resources and that. And I agree with what you say concerning other space programs, because it is always a competition to be better than someone else in buisness and new advancements.
I think more space agencies will be active in trying to land a rover or something on an astroid or a planet or something because it could gain the country's space agency and the own country some respect on the education side and would show that that certain country knows what they are doing with space.
I think that this is a very good upgrade to our earth because this will definetly help us with with any astroids that are coming to earth. I think that they will be more active becaseu they just landed this and they are going to use this mlre and more and they want to keep up eith this technology.
I also think that this new mission has the ability to save the Earth if need be from and incoming asteroid. I also agee with you in the sense that the competition will try to up their game against JAXA.
I do feel like other space agencies are going to be start being an enormous amount more active because of this. The other space stations are probably going to try and one up each other from here on out. They are going to try and make bigger and better discoveries faster than the other space stations. I feel like JAXA just started a big race.
I too think the other space agencies will ramp up their acticity even if just a little. I don't think this is big enough to start another space race per say. The world right now is reletivly peaceful and not as tense as the cold war.
I think too that the better technology and knowledge we get about these asteroids, the safer we will be as a species. The fact that this was done bodes well for what can be done in the future.
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