 |
| By Manager Online | 14 June 2010 11:02 |
|
| ||
|
by Madeleine Coorey, June 14, 2010
SYDNEY (AFP) - A capsule that scientists hope will contain a little slice of outer space after a seven-year journey across the solar system was sitting in the Australian Outback on Monday waiting to be recovered.
The pod, which was ejected from a Japanese space probe as it burned up in a spectacular meteor-like display over Australia, could hold the first piece of asteroid ever brought to Earth.
The heat-resistant pod parachuted into the Woomera military zone after being ejected from Japan's Hayabusa spacecraft as it flamed back into the planet's atmosphere late Sunday.
Australian National University scientist Trevor Ireland, who watched the spacecraft's reentry from the Outback town of Coober Pedy, said it looked like a meteor as it flashed orange across the night sky.
"It looked just like that in terms of fragmentation and pieces flying off it and glowing, it was just absolutely amazing," Ireland told AFP by telephone from Woomera.
Scientists from Japan's space agency JAXA said they have located the capsule, from which they hope to collect a sample of the Itokawa asteroid, following a helicopter search over the remote region.
"The plan is to pick it up today, package it up and get it over to Tokyo as quickly as possible," Ireland said.
Despite enduring temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun on re-entry, the round-bottomed, 20-centimetre (7-inch) tall capsule would be cool enough to be transported after a night in the Outback, he added.
The Hayabusa, which was launched in 2003, has endured a series of technical mishaps over its seven-year, five billion-kilometre (three-billion-mile) journey to the ancient far-flung asteroid.
It is not known whether the craft was able to collect a sample from the asteroid, but any material it does have could shed light on the early history of the solar system, the formation of planets, and help reduce the threat of asteroid collisions in the future, scientists say.
Yoshiyuki Hasegawa, JAXA's associate executive director, said when scientists knew the capsule had made a better-than-expected soft landing, "we were very happy".
He said excitment had been high because the craft had only been designed to last four years and there were concerns about whether its battery would last the full seven years or if its control system would malfunction.
Ireland said the mood among the international scientists studying the craft was "hyper" after the capsule landed, successfully deploying its parachute and signalling systems so it could be found it in the vast Outback.
"It was a huge worry that the parachute wouldn't go off, the (signalling) beacons wouldn't go off, and that it would come down in a mud lake and get lost in the landscape," he said.
Ireland, who expects to be among the scientists who will analyse the contents of the capsule, said the landing was a "once in a lifetime" opportunity for scientists.
He said the story of the little car-sized spaceship, which had travelled across the solar system, encountering various technical troubles along the way, and then successfully negotiated its re-entry to Earth was like a movie plot.
"If there is a sample in there that we can analyse that will be a bonus," he said. "It's already been a tremendous mission. It really is a fairy tale."
The historic mission means for the first time a spacecraft has made contact with an asteroid and returned to Earth.
Aboriginal tribespeople will assist in the recovery of the canister to ensure no damage is done to sites sacred to their ancient culture, and it will then remain sealed until it arrives at the JAXA facility near Tokyo, for analysis by scientists from Japan, Australia and the United States.
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น