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[Please accept my apologies for the late posting to the site. I *thought* I had it queued up with plenty of time, but somehow messed up somewhere. --martyb]
The Japanese Space Agency's Hyabusa-2 probe is about to touch down on the asteroid 162173 Ryuga.
A live stream of the event will be available here starting at 4:45pm ET
The asteroid-circling spacecraft won't land so much as delicately brush the surface of Ryugu. During the late stages of descent, the probe will fire a tantalum pellet at the asteroid surface. The 650-mile-per-hour collision will create a plume of dust and debris that Hayabusa-2 will attempt to scoop up with an instrument dubbed the Sampler Horn.
This is equivalent to a bit over 6x the speed of the fastest slapshot ever recorded in an Ice Hockey Rink.
This will be the first of three passes to collect rock and dust samples from the asteroid. Samples will be returned to Earth in 2020.
Also at phys.org and sciencenews.org
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday February 22 2019, @12:18AM (1 child)
Hmm..., ok, that's just the projectile. Did this thing actually land? In which case, I assume the approach speed was significantly less than 650mph. So, if it's touching down / landing, it's not so much of a skim / slapshot, then. One picture even shows it as supposed to be landing.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Friday February 22 2019, @12:36AM
So technically yes - all the risk of landing without actually getting to hang out and raid the liquor cabinet.
And they are going to do it two more times :)
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