Japanese probe's asteroid Ryugu encounter hints at space rock's dynamic history

By Meghan Bartels 16 hours ago

A Japanese spacecraft is piecing together the story of a near-Earth asteroid.

A Japanese spacecraft trekking across the solar system has yet to deliver its precious cargo of space rocks back to Earth, but its data is already giving scientists a preview of a near-Earth asteroid's dynamic history.

The spacecraft is Hayabusa2, which arrived at an asteroid called Ryugu in the summer of 2018 and spent 16 months orbiting the asteroid. During its extended visit, Hayabusa2 dropped three rovers onto the asteroid and scooped some samples from the space rock's surface.

The probe is already on its way back to Earth to deliver the samples to eager scientists affiliated with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission. But while the shipment won't arrive until December, scientists are getting a head start by studying data gathered during Hayabusa2's operations at the asteroid's surface, and they have realized that Ryugu has had quite a dynamic history.

Right now, Ryugu is orbiting the sun at a distance somewhere between the orbits of Earth and Mars. But the new research suggests that at some point in the past, the asteroid darted awfully close to the sun and dramatically warmed, permanently changing Ryugu's appearance.

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