Japan Has Opened Hayabusa2’s Capsule Confirming It Contains Samples From

The Japanese space agency (JAXA) says it has begun opening the capsule returned to Earth by its historic Hayabusa2 mission – and has confirmed asteroid samples are inside. Today, Monday, December 14, the capsule was opened for the first time since it touched down in the Australian outback on December 6 following its journey through space. On board, scientists were hoping to find pieces of asteroid Ryugu, collected millions of kilometers from Earth – and now JAXA has confirmed the mission was successful.“A black granular sample believed to be derived from the asteroid Ryugu was confirmed inside the sample container,” JAXA said in a short statement.“This is thought to be the particles attached to the entrance of the sample catcher (the container in which the sample is stored).”The entire capsule itself has yet to be opened, meaning there are likely more samples of the asteroid waiting inside. But just confirming any samples at all were collected is fantastic news, as JAXA wasn’t sure how successful the sample capture had been. Scientists will now spend years studying the sample, hoping to learn more about Ryugu’s origins and the origins of life on Earth too. Hayabusa2 was launched in 2014 on a mission to collect samples from Ryugu – Japan’s second attempt at retrieving material from an asteroid since the mostly successful Hayabusa1 in 2010. Another mission, NASA's OSIRIS-REx, is also scheduled to return material from another asteroid, Bennu, in 2023. Following a four-year journey, the spacecraft arrived at Ryugu in June 2018. It then deployed multiple landers onto the surface, before attempting to touch down itself and scoop up material. It did so twice, once in February 2019 and again in July 2019, by firing a projectile into the surface and collecting material up a long sampler arm into the capsule container. The second event was particularly notable, because the spacecraft had previously blasted a crater in the asteroid to expose pristine subsurface material for the collection attempt. This material should date back to the dawn of the Solar System, potentially revealing if asteroids like Ryugu could have delivered the building blocks of life to Earth. Scientists are also interested to know if asteroids like Ryugu contain a lot of water, as well as whether they contain mysterious seed-like rocks called chondrules. The spacecraft, however, had no way of knowing if its two attempts at collecting a sample had been successful. Scientists were only expecting to collect about a gram of material from the asteroid, but had to wait until Hayabusa2’s return to know how much – if any – sample was on board. After leaving the asteroid in November 2019, Hayabusa2 finally returned back to Earth in December 2020. Here it released the sample capsule, which re-entered our atmosphere on December 6 and touched down in Australia, where it was collected by scientists.

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[aintitdatruth]

At 69 years of age I have witnessed many firsts in space exploration. I am sure there will be many more firsts as our knowledge and abilities to explore space grows. Japan has shown the world it has " The Right Stuff " and I wish I could be around for another 69 just to see how much further we will go. Science Rules !

[arconeagain]

Here's your coffee Sir, just how you like it.
What happened to the sample?!

[Buonarotti]

The video is not connected to the narration. ???