Watch: Animated video of Japan’s Hayabusa-2 touching down on asteroid Ryugu 290 million km away
The animation of the July 11 landing was shot on its monitor camera Cam-H, which was installed with the help of public donations.
This is a 10x speed animation captured with the small monitor camera (CAM-H) during 2nd touchdown. CAM-H was installed by public donation — thank you everyone! Image time: 2019/7/11 10:03:54 ~ 10:11:44 JST, at altitudes 8.5m ~ 150m. (📷 JAXA) https://t.co/ZrzegHABYU pic.twitter.com/owtaDxZx0m
— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) July 26, 2019
Japan’s Hayabusa-2 probe, which successfully completed its second touchdown operation on asteroid Ryugu – 290 million km from Earth – on July 11, has sent back clips of the landing.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s probe, which is travelling with the aim of collecting samples of material to shed light on the history of the solar system, was launched in December 2014 and completed its first successful landing in February.
The new animation, which plays at 10 times the actual speed of touchdown, was shot on its monitor camera, Cam-H, which is pointed past the craft’s sampling mechanism. The animation shows the probe touching down, and then lifting off Ryugu.
JAXA has released a great video (stitched from still images and sped up 13.4x) of Hayabusa2 touching down on asteroid Ryugu and then YEETing back up into space! https://t.co/3hNB0CmTbn pic.twitter.com/BHEKnULqyD
— Dr. Alfredo Carpineti 🏳️🌈 (@DrCarpineti) July 26, 2019
As soon as Hayabusa-2 touched down on Ryugu, the spacecraft fired a bullet into the asteroid, blasting up debris. Material from Ryugu made its way into Hayabusa-2’s sampler horn, after which the craft lifted back up, leaving the asteroid, explained NewsNation.
The Japanese craft is expected to leave the asteroid and return home later this year. The asteroid Ryugu is named after an undersea dragon palace from a Japanese folktale.
This is a panoramic composed from images by the wide-angle navigation cameras, ONC-W1 & ONC-W2, just before touchdown! Image 2 marks the area near the SCI crater, target marker (TM) and sampler horn contact point. (📷 JAXA, Chiba Inst. Tech.)
— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) July 26, 2019
Article: https://t.co/ZrzegHABYU pic.twitter.com/Tamj2HIHAY
[PPTD] Today (July 12), Hayabusa2 returned to the home position as scheduled. During this second touchdown operation (PPTD), we received a huge amount of support from so many people. Thanks to you, we were able to carry out the PPTD operation safely. Thank you very much! pic.twitter.com/6Sy8coM8D5
— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) July 12, 2019