Last week Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe successfully delivered the first of 3 sets of rovers to the surface of the asteroid Ryugu, proving us the first photos from the surface of an asteroid.
Hayabusa 2 is one of those many current space mission which I’ve simply never covered. It flew “under the radar” so to speak until last week when I saw updates on the mission being shared on Twitter by Dave from EEVBlog. The probe was due that night to release the first set of rovers to the surface of the asteroid, Rover-1A, and 1B. Due to the quite low gravity of the asteroid Ryugu instead of using a typical wheeled drive system, they move via hopping, and it was during one of these hops that the first photos taken “from the surface” of the asteroid were taken.
At some point, I should go over the Hayabusa 2 mission, but for now, I just thought it worth sharing these tweets from JAXA containing some of these amazing photos from the surface of Ryugu. More to come, as always.
If you want to read up, or see more information on the mission currently (albeit in Japanese) the links below will give you plenty of info on this absolutely amazing mission which is going on as we speak. Honestly, it’s probably the most interesting thing in space going on right now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayabusa2
Photo taken by Rover-1B on Sept 21 at ~13:07 JST. It was captured just after separation from the spacecraft. Ryugu's surface is in the lower right. The misty top left region is due to the reflection of sunlight. 1B seems to rotate slowly after separation, minimising image blur. pic.twitter.com/P71gsC9VNI
— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) September 22, 2018
This dynamic photo was captured by Rover-1A on September 22 at around 11:44 JST. It was taken on Ryugu's surface during a hop. The left-half is the surface of Ryugu, while the white region on the right is due to sunlight. (Hayabusa2 Project) pic.twitter.com/IQLsFd4gJu
— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) September 22, 2018
While Hayabusa2 normally hovers at the home position, for the BOX-B “tour” operation, the spacecraft swung round to see Ryugu’s south pole and evening side. https://t.co/VLa7CrY86v pic.twitter.com/l7b73FCxHk
— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) September 27, 2018
This image was taken just before Rover-1B hopped. Photograph snapped on September 23, 2018 at about 09:46 JST [2/6] pic.twitter.com/m8S3cyYFq6
— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) September 27, 2018
Rover-1A snapped a photograph of its own antenna and pin! Image taken on September 23, 2018 at 09:48 JST. [5/6] pic.twitter.com/W8zJqo2233
— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) September 27, 2018
As Hayabusa2 descended towards Ryugu to deploy the MINERVA-II1 rovers, the ONC-T camera snapped the highest resolution image yet of the asteroid surface!https://t.co/JDbk29RXHG pic.twitter.com/KFsLet5BMJ
— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) September 28, 2018
Rover-1B succeeded in shooting a movie on Ryugu’s surface! The movie has 15 frames captured on September 23, 2018 from 10:34 – 11:48 JST. Enjoy ‘standing’ on the surface of this asteroid! [6/6] pic.twitter.com/57avmjvdVa
— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) September 27, 2018