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.
Related Stories
Japanese spacecraft drops box-shaped robot on asteroid's surface
Overnight, Japan's asteroid-sampling spacecraft Hayabusa2 deployed its third robot onto the surface of an asteroid named Ryugu more than 186 million miles from Earth. This time, the robotic explorer is a tiny, box-shaped lander crafted by Germany and France's space agencies, dubbed MASCOT. While on the asteroid, the robot will hop around slowly and study the surface in detail, measuring things like temperature and the composition of nearby rocks.
[...] MASCOT is also able to move around in a similar way to Rover-1A and Rover-1B. In fact, engineers already opted to move the lander once it had reached the surface last night because they found that it was sitting at a bad angle. The mission team switched on MASCOT's mobility system, shifting the robot's position and placing it in a much more favorable orientation. The German space agency DLR says that now all of MASCOT's instruments are working just fine and are continuing to collect data.
The lander has a suite of four instruments on board to characterize Ryugu. These will allow MASCOT to take pictures, measure temperatures, figure out the different minerals on the asteroid, and measure the space rock's magnetic field. However, MASCOT's time on the surface of Ryugu is limited. It doesn't have any solar panels, so it's operating entirely off of an internal battery that lasts just 16 hours. The mission team says that, as of this morning, the lander has under seven hours left to complete its work.
- Navigation Images from the MASCOT deployment operation
- The small asteroid lander, MASCOT
- Information on the MASCOT lander
Also at NPR.
Previously: Hayabusa2 Reaches Asteroid 162173 Ryugu
Japan's Hopping Rovers Capture Amazing Views of Asteroid Ryugu
Another Space Diamond! NASA Probe Snaps Great Photo of Asteroid Bennu
The asteroid Bennu is really coming into focus for NASA's approaching OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.
OSIRIS-REx snapped eight photos of the 1,650-foot-wide (500 meters) Bennu on Monday (Oct. 29), when the probe was about 205 miles (330 kilometers) away from the space rock. Mission team members combined these images into a single "super-resolution" shot, which reveals boulders and other features on the asteroid's surface.
The striking photo also highlights Bennu's diamond shape, which is similar to that of the 3,000-foot-wide (900 m) asteroid Ryugu. Japan's Hayabusa2 mission has been orbiting Ryugu since late June and has dropped three separate landing craft onto the space rock's surface over the past five weeks.
101955 Bennu has an average diameter of 492 meters, compared to about 1 kilometer for 162173 Ryugu. New Horizons will fly by (486958) 2014 MU69, a 30-40 km object or objects, on January 1, capping the space rock trio for the year.
NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona photo.
Previously: New Horizons Spacecraft Approaches 2014 MU69; OSIRIS-REx Nears 101955 Bennu (images taken from 2.2 million km away)
Related: Hayabusa2 Reaches Asteroid 162173 Ryugu
Japan's Hopping Rovers Capture Amazing Views of Asteroid Ryugu
Short-Lived MASCOT Lander Reaches Asteroid Ryugu
Asteroid capsule 'found' in Australian desert
A recovery team in Australia has found a space capsule carrying the first large quantities of rock from an asteroid.
The capsule, containing material from a space rock called Ryugu, parachuted down near Woomera in South Australia.
The samples were originally collected by a Japanese spacecraft called Hayabusa-2, which spent more than a year investigating the object.
The container detached from Hayabusa-2, later entering the Earth's atmosphere.
The official Hayabusa-2 Twitter account reported that the capsule and its parachute had been found at 19:47 GMT.
Also at CNET.
Previously: Hayabusa2 Approaches Asteroid Ryugu
Hayabusa2 Reaches Asteroid 162173 Ryugu
Hayabusa2 Deploys MINERVA Landers to Asteroid Ryugu
Japan's Hopping Rovers Capture Amazing Views of Asteroid Ryugu
Short-Lived MASCOT Lander Reaches Asteroid Ryugu
Hayabusa2 Spacecraft Faces Difficulties in Landing and Collecting a Sample from an Asteroid
Hayabusa2 "Lands" on Asteroid Ryugu
New jumping device achieves the tallest height of any known jumper, engineered or biological
A mechanical jumper developed by UC Santa Barbara engineering professor Elliot Hawkes and collaborators is capable of achieving the tallest height—roughly 100 feet (30 meters)—of any jumper to date, engineered or biological. The feat represents a fresh approach to the design of jumping devices and advances the understanding of jumping as a form of locomotion.
[...] Biological systems have long served as the first and best models for locomotion, and that has been especially true for jumping, defined by the researchers as a "movement created by forces applied to the ground by the jumper, while maintaining a constant mass." Many engineered jumpers have focused on duplicating the designs provided by evolution, and to great effect.
[...] "Biological systems can only jump with as much energy as they can produce in a single stroke of their muscle," Xaio said. Thus, the system is limited in the amount of energy it can give to pushing the body off the ground, and the jumper can jump only so high.
[...] "This difference between energy production in biological versus engineered jumpers means that the two should have very different designs to maximize jump height," Xiao said. "Animals should have a small spring—only enough to store the relatively small amount of energy produced by their single muscle stroke—and a large muscle mass. In contrast, engineered jumpers should have as large a spring as possible and a tiny motor."
[...] This design and the ability to exceed the limits set by biological designs sets the stage for the reimagining of jumping as an efficient form of machine locomotion: Jumping robots could get places where only flying robots currently reach.
[...] "We calculated that the device should be able to clear 125 meters in height while jumping half of a kilometer forward on the moon," said Hawkes, pointing out that gravity is 1/6 of that on Earth and that there is basically no air drag. "That would be one giant leap for engineered jumpers."
Hopping robots have been shown to be effective for exploring.
Journal Reference:
Elliot Hawkes et al, Engineered jumpers overcome biological limits via work multiplication, Nature (2022).
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04606-3
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 29 2018, @03:52PM (2 children)
That same alien I discovered earlier is in this image:
http://www.hayabusa2.jaxa.jp/en/topics/20180927e_MNRV/img/fig2_R1B_JST20180923-0946.jpg [hayabusa2.jaxa.jp]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 29 2018, @04:24PM
> That same alien I discovered earlier is in this image
JJ Abrams was unavailable for comment.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 29 2018, @09:52PM
So, what do you expect to happen when JAXA admits that the lens flare beings are real?
Oh right... it's not about that. It's just about sticking it to the man, because you're such of an oppressed basement-dwelling incel. Not even a lens flare organism can save you from your pathetic existence.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 29 2018, @04:00PM (6 children)
Seriously, what kind of aliexpress "4K" cameras are those? My 8€ half HD camera takes better shots. For the amount of money they used on those, they could've bought 100's of those cheap cameras and combine them to get a huge photo.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Saturday September 29 2018, @04:27PM
The Minerva rovers are a tiny secondary payload with a total mass of 1-1.1 kg each.
There is a larger rover, MASCOT, which will be deployed on October 3. It has a mass of 9.6 kg. It might be able to take better pictures, although it has a non-rechargeable battery.
The Hayabusa2 spacecraft itself took a pretty good image from an altitude of 64 meters. This object will be well photographed by the end of the mission.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 29 2018, @04:58PM (2 children)
You are clearly of the management class. "All you have to do . . ."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 30 2018, @02:02PM (1 child)
Am not. Obviously don't take the message too seriously, it was a semi-joke, but i really do wonder is there anything valuable in those picture? They are pretty bad imho, for the price that's paid for the project and with current tech.
(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.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 29 2018, @07:54PM
For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion(operation of wandering)(planet) so that they will believe the lie.
https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipns/QmRjnvwZFj8bWba3HHKo7pnLm5kep4nvQepMcM1eejzgsn [cloudflare-ipfs.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 01 2018, @08:51AM
(Score: 3, Funny) by RandomFactor on Saturday September 29 2018, @06:21PM
No sound.
Predictable plot.
Crappy frame rate.
Too much lens flare.
Actors were like rocks.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 29 2018, @09:12PM
First you wipe out our auto industry, now you're after our hopping rover industry.
(Score: 2) by corey on Saturday September 29 2018, @10:58PM
That space.com video is so, I'd call it, Youtube-ified. Title is "Asteroid Rover captures awesome video" from memory. Click bait there. Then there's the dramatic music. And when they play the video they have text boxes covering half of it. But then it gets repeated like on them over dramatised TV shows.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 29 2018, @11:40PM
And they couldn't teach the robot to hold that mid-2000s smartphone camera horizontally.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 30 2018, @06:46AM
Did not know hayabusa2 was a tie fighter, and if is flitting all the way out there alone ... would have to say that is no moon. Oh and the hopping droids are so last trilogy, is the 9kg model with blue trim?