Next July the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans to launch the probe Hayabusa 2 to asteroid 1999 JU3 and blast it with a 4.4 pound (2 kg) copper projectile to excavate an artificial 9-foot-wide crater. The probe will detach from the cannon, which is armed with the powerful explosive HMX. When detonated, the resulting blast will propel the projectile toward the surface at more than 4,300 mph (6,900 km/hr).
A small camera hovering nearby will observe the explosion, but to protect its sensitive instruments from flying debris, Hayabusa 2 will “hide out” on the other side of the asteroid.
The crater-making exercise will uncover pristine subsurface rocks not exposed to the degrading effects of cosmic rays and solar radiation. Hayabusa 2 will then return to the crater, extend an arm-like probe and gather up crumbles of rock loosened by the blast.
1999 JU3, about 3,018 feet (920 meters) across, is a dark C-type asteroid thought to be similar in composition to carbonaceous chondrite meteorites which contain not only carbon, but amino acids and water-rich minerals. C-type asteroids are the most common and may have delivered some of the essential chemical building blocks important to the origin of life on Earth during the formation of the planets 4.5 billion years ago.
Hayabusa 2 is expected to arrive at the asteroid sometime in 2018, survey and sample the it for a year and a half, depart in December 2019 and return to Earth in December 2020. Many improvements and backups have been made to the probe, the successor to Japan’s first Hayabusa asteroid sample mission launched in 2003.
Despite multiple equipment failures the craft serendipitously gathered some 100 minute dust grains from the S-type (stony) asteroid Itokawa and returned them to Earth in 2010. Chemical analysis showed that Itokawa resembled the familiar LL chondrite (Low total iron, Low metal) meteorites that have rained down on Earth over the centuries and found their way into many meteorite collections.
Working with both Germany and France, the current mission will also carry a little roving robot named MASCOT (Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout) that can hop about on the asteroid taking detailed, close-up photos and other measurements during its 16-hour lifetime on the surface.
For more on this exciting mission, click HERE.