Japan's Hopping Rovers Capture Amazing Views of Asteroid Ryugu (Video)
Two tiny, hopping rovers that landed on asteroid Ryugu last week have beamed back some incredible new views of the asteroid's rocky surface.
The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Hayabusa2 sample-return mission dropped the two nearly identical rovers, named Minerva-II1A and Minerva-II1B, onto the surface of Ryugu on Sept. 21. In a new video from the eyes of Minerva-II1B, you can watch the sun move across the sky as its glaring sunlight reflects off the shiny rocks that cover Ryugu's surface.
Also at Hayabusa2 project website.
takyon: Additionally, the Hayabusa2 spacecraft has returned its highest resolution view of Ryugu, from when it dropped the Minerva rovers.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday September 30 2018, @02:33PM
They get enough good imagery from the main spacecraft. But maybe they could combine the images to refine 3D modeling of the object. There's also another MINERVA rover that seems to have different cameras than the first two, and a bigger MASCOT [wikipedia.org] rover that will be dropped about 3 days from now.
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