date of publication:
August 17 2022 20:22 GMT
Update date: August 17, 2022 21:35 GMT
Samples from space returned to Earth by the Japanese “Hayabusa 2” probe revealed the presence of grains of material that formed before the sun existed, on the asteroid “Ryugu”. A report published by
Source: Iram News
Samples from space returned to Earth by the Japanese “Hayabuza 2” probe revealed the presence of grains of material that formed before the sun existed, on the asteroid “Ryugu”.
A report published by “Futura Sions” website said that space researchers are focusing their efforts on searching for the roots and cosmic identity of the various components of the solar system, through missions carried out by spacecraft, including the Japanese probe “Hayabusa 2”, which was in orbit around the asteroid “Ryugu”. From June 2018 to November 2019, samples were taken that have since arrived on Earth and are still being analyzed.
The report indicated that by analyzing the samples that the probe brought to Earth, it was found that they belong to a member of the Apollo family of asteroids, or near-Earth asteroids, which are among those potentially dangerous.
He added that these asteroids were discovered, in 1999, and it soon became clear that they are part of the “C” type asteroids, i.e. similar to the known chondrite carbonaceous meteorites on Earth, so their chemical composition is close to that of molecular matter and the dusty cloud, where the primitive solar system originated , without light and volatile elements such as ice.
These materials represent a preferred target for researchers, to understand the origin of the planets and the formation of the sun, in addition to what was revealed by analyzing the samples of the Japanese probe, the announcement made in an article by an international team of researchers led by Jens Baruch and Larry Nettler, from the Carnegie Institution for Science, published in the Astrophysical Journal, Where the members of this team confirmed that they discovered in the samples brought by the Japanese probe a significant number of pre-solar grains.
Three years ago today (February 22, 2019) was the first touchdown of Hayabusa2! We remember the extremely tense operation. The sample collected at that time is now being examined by our initial analysis team. We are excited about what we will find! pic.twitter.com/tvmyBnHOzk
— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) February 22, 2022
By this discovery, the researchers mean solid matter that condenses into grains, and not in the protoplanetary disk of gas and dust that cooled around the sun about 4.5 to 4.6 billion years ago.
Pre-solar grains, pre-sun minerals, or stardust are small crystals that form part of the micro-grain array of primitive meteorites presumed to have existed before the formation of the solar system and give rise to the stellar fusion reactions that occurred within each star before the sun.