{"id":18465,"date":"2018-06-21T20:32:05","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T12:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/japans-hayabusa-2-probe-closes-in-on-asteroid-ryugu-and-captures-close-ups\/"},"modified":"2018-06-21T20:32:05","modified_gmt":"2018-06-21T12:32:05","slug":"japans-hayabusa-2-probe-closes-in-on-asteroid-ryugu-and-captures-close-ups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/japans-hayabusa-2-probe-closes-in-on-asteroid-ryugu-and-captures-close-ups\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan\u2019s Hayabusa 2 probe closes in on asteroid Ryugu \u2013 and captures close-ups"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hayabusa
A series of pictures from Japan\u2019s Hayabusa 2 probe shows views of the asteroid Ryugu during the spacecraft\u2019s approach. The closest views were captured from a distance of about 100 kilometers (62 miles), and reveal craters and boulders on the asteroid\u2019s turning surface. (JAXA Photos)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Look! Up in the sky! It\u2019s a dumpling \u2026 It\u2019s a \u201cStar Trek\u201d Borg cube \u2026 It\u2019s the asteroid Ryugu!<\/p>\n

Our view of Ryugu, a half-mile-wide space rock nearly 180 million miles from Earth, is coming into sharper focus with the approach of the Japanese probe Hayabusa 2.<\/p>\n

Three and a half years after its launch, the spacecraft is now within 35 miles of the asteroid, closing in on what\u2019s expected to be a standoff orbital distance of 12 miles. The pictures that it\u2019s been sending back throughout the approach provide enough detail to reveal Ryugu\u2019s blocky shape.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like\u2026 a dango-type asteroid! (Actually, that\u2019s a Japanese sweet dumpling. But the shape seems to be similar so far\u2026),\u201d the mission team tweeted last week.<\/p>\n

The images reminded German science writer Daniel Fischer of something more ominous: the cube-shaped starship inhabited by the nefarious Borg collective in the \u201cStar Trek\u201d sci-fi tale. \u201cTo keep crucial shocking details from most of the world the caption exists only in Japanese,\u201d he joked in a tweet.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=b9fITBmQt1Y<\/p>\n

As the asteroid mission proceeds, more space fans are sure to be assimilated. Around the end of July, the probe is due to descend to a distance of just a few miles, according to the schedule laid out by the Planetary Society\u2019s Emily Lakdawalla.  In August, it\u2019ll go even closer, to 0.6 miles (1 kilometer).<\/p>\n

All this is a prelude to the main event: Over the course of the following year, Hayabusa 2 will make a series of touchdowns on the asteroid\u2019s surface to gather samples. Small landers and a German-built rover known as the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout, or Mascot, will be deployed to make on-the-surface observations.<\/p>\n

Around the end of 2019, Hayabusa 2 will leave Ryugu, and by the end of 2020 it should be back at Earth to drop off its samples.<\/p>\n

Hayabusa 2 follows up on the first Hayabusa probe, which made a similar cosmic trek to collect samples from the asteroid Itokawa in 2005. Those samples were returned in 2010 after a journey that turned out to be more complicated than expected, due to technical problems.<\/p>\n

NASA is in the midst of its own asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-REx. That probe is due to rendezvous with the asteroid Bennu in December, conduct a detailed survey, and return samples to Earth in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A series of pictures from Japan\u2019s Hayabusa 2 probe shows views of the asteroid Ryugu during the spacecraft\u2019s approach. The closest views were captured from a distance of about 100 kilometers (62 miles), and reveal craters and boulders on the asteroid\u2019s turning surface. (JAXA Photos) Look! Up in the sky! It\u2019s a dumpling \u2026 It\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4365,1965,377,2168],"class_list":["post-18465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-asteroid","tag-hayabusa-2","tag-japan","tag-ryugu"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18465"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}