Physical Sciences Division
Published October 20, 2022 | Version v1
Journal article Open

First asteroid gas sample delivered by the Hayabusa2 mission: A treasure box from Ryugu

Creators

  • 1. Kyushu University
  • 2. University of Tokyo
  • 3. Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
  • 4. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
  • 5. Tokyo Institute of Technology
  • 6. Research Institute for Global Change
  • 7. Ibaraki University
  • 8. Tohoku University
  • 9. Université de Lorraine
  • 10. Washington University in St. Louis
  • 11. ETH Zürich
  • 12. University of Manchester
  • 13. City University of New York
  • 14. Hokkaido University
  • 15. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  • 16. Kyoto University
  • 17. Yamagata University
  • 18. Tokyo Metropolitan University
  • 19. University of Chicago

Description

The Hayabusa2 spacecraft returned to Earth from the asteroid 162173 Ryugu on 6 December 2020. One day after the recovery, the gas species retained in the sample container were extracted and measured on-site and stored in gas collection bottles. The container gas consists of helium and neon with an extraterrestrial 3He/4He and 20Ne/22Ne ratios, along with some contaminant terrestrial atmospheric gases. A mixture of solar and Earth's atmospheric gas is the best explanation for the container gas composition. Fragmentation of Ryugu grains within the sample container is discussed on the basis of the estimated amount of indigenous He and the size distribution of the recovered Ryugu grains. This is the first successful return of gas species from a near-Earth asteroid.

Notes

Due to the large number of authors, only the first 20 and the University of Chicago authors are included on the above author list. Please download the article for the complete list of authors.

Data availability

All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary Materials. All images used in this study are available at the JAXA Data Archives and Transmission System (DARTS) at https://data.darts.isas.jaxa.jp/pub/hayabusa2/paper/sample/Okazaki_2022b. Data of the Hayabusa2 sample and other data from the mission are available at the DARTS archive at www.darts.isas.jaxa.jp/curation/hayabusa2 and www.darts.isas.jaxa.jp/planet/project/hayabusa2, respectively. The gas samples of the Hayabusa2 sample container are curated by the JAXA Astromaterials Science Research Group; distribution for analysis will be available through an Announcement of Opportunity at https://jaxa-ryugu-sample-ao.net.

Files

sciadv.abo7239.pdf

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Additional details

Identifiers

DOI
10.1126/sciadv.abo7239
Other
oai:uchicago.tind.io:10916

Funding

Science and Technology Facilities Council
JP19H01959
Science and Technology Facilities Council
JP20H05846
Science and Technology Facilities Council
695618
Science and Technology Facilities Council
715028
Science and Technology Facilities Council
ST/R000751/1
Science and Technology Facilities Council
ST/V000675/1
Science and Technology Facilities Council
JP20H00190
Science and Technology Facilities Council
200020
Science and Technology Facilities Council
182649
Science and Technology Facilities Council
51NF40-182901
Science and Technology Facilities Council
PZ00P2
Science and Technology Facilities Council
193331
Swiss National Science Foundation
200020_182649
Swiss National Science Foundation
PlanetS

UChicago Information

Division(s)
Physical Sciences Division
Department(s)
Geophysical Sciences