Aster › Space program › Ryugu
Ryugu
Position on the route: 5/130 · level needed 26 · journey (Mk0 engine) 3.4 h
By the numbers
| Diameter | ≈ 900 m |
|---|---|
| Year | 474 days |
| Type | Cg-type, carbonaceous |
| Sample | ≈ 5.4 g, 2020 |
The story
Ryugu is a carbon-rich near-Earth asteroid found in 1999, named for the undersea palace of a Japanese tale. Hayabusa2 (JAXA) arrived in 2018, released small rovers and a lander, and in 2019 blasted an artificial crater with a copper impactor to collect sub-surface material: fresh stuff never altered by space radiation.
The capsule landed in Australia on 6 December 2020. The sample holds more than twenty amino acids, uracil and water-altered minerals: one more piece of evidence that some of life’s building blocks may have come from space. Hayabusa2 is still flying: it will reach a tiny asteroid in 2031.
Missions
- Hayabusa2 (JAXA, 2014–2020): brought a sample home
- The MASCOT (DLR/CNES) and MINERVA-II rovers
Colony note
Carbonaceous ore and ice; almost no gravity. A mining base.
What probes bring back
- Hayabusa2 (JAXA) arrived in 2018, blasted an artificial crater with a copper impactor (2019), sampled from beneath the surface too, and on 6 December 2020 brought about 5.4 g of it home.
- The sample holds more than twenty amino acids and uracil (an RNA base); its parent body was altered by water.
- A spinning-top rubble pile about 900 m across; density 1.2 g/cm³.