A Japanese space probe apparently succeeded in landing on an asteroid yesterday and collecting surface samples in an unprecedented mission to bring the extraterrestrial material back to Earth, but afterward showed signs of trouble, Japan's space agency said.
The probe, now hovering about 5km from the asteroid, appeared to be shaking vertically due to problems with its thruster, according to spokesman Atsushi Akoh of Japan's space agency JAXA.
The agency would put the probe into "safety mode" to investigate, Akoh said.
PHOTO: AP
JAXA announced earlier yesterday that the Hayabusa appeared to have touched down for a few seconds on the asteroid -- floating 290 million kilometers from Earth -- to collect powder from its surface before lifting off again to transmit data to mission controllers.
"The process of sampling also seems to have gone very well," said another JAXA spokesman, Kiyotaka Yashiro.
But the agency won't know for sure if Hayabusa collected surface samples until it returns to Earth. It is expected to land in the Australian Outback in June 2007.
If all goes well, it will be the first time a probe returns to Earth with samples from an asteroid, according to JAXA. A NASA probe collected data for two weeks from the asteroid Eros in 2001, but did not return with samples.
Hayabusa's feat "contributes greatly to the exploration of space by mankind," Iwao Matsuda, the state minister in charge of science and technology, said yesterday in a statement.
Yesterday's landing on the asteroid was Hayabusa's second, following a faulty touchdown last Sunday. JAXA lost contact with the probe during that attempt and didn't even realize it had landed until days later -- long after Hayabusa had lifted off into orbit.
The space agency hopes that examining asteroid samples will help unlock the secrets of how celestial bodies formed, because their surfaces are believed to have remained relatively unchanged over the eons, unlike larger bodies such as the planets or moons.
Hayabusa fired a metal projectile shortly before 8 am Japan time , suggesting that the asteroid had landed and collected the dust that was kicked up. The whole procedure was over in a matter of seconds, as planned.
"It is only a very small amount of material, powder really," Yashiro said.
Hayabusa was launched in May 2003 and has until next month before it must begin its journey home.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing