Hitting an asteroid w/pics

[♦ nivek ♦]

From the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency:

 

English page with information of and about Hayabua 2 Asteroid Explorer Program.

 

Tons of pics, graphs, and information about the lander with its finds.  

Follow above URL if so inclined.

 

Love to hear from Bhim, his opinions of this effort and research.

 

kevinL

[LogicalFallacy]

That's the Japanese lander right? I read about that the other day. Awesome achievement. Will we one day go to the stars?

[pantheory]

The Japanese Hyabusa mission has very recently put "Jumping" landers on the surface of an asteroid called Itokawa. This is called a near- Earth asteroid which has a more elliptical orbit than Earth and has the potential for an Earth impact if its orbital path were somehow perturbed.  Its average orbital distance from the sun is roughly 1.1 AU, about 10% farther away from the sun than the Earth. The asteroid is irregular shaped. At its longest it is about a quarter of a kilometer, and its width is roughly less than half of that. Its density is roughly 23 g/cm³ (grams per cubit centimeter). They call it a rubble pile as it is  likely a collection of much smaller rocks and grains of sand held together by gravity, based upon its looks and estimated density. The average age of its surface rocks and sand appears to be roughly 300 million years old. As far as asteroids are concerned this one appears to be relatively young and new, at least on its surface.

 

Its closest possible approach to Earth is presently about 60,000 miles, about 1/4 the distance from here to the moon. The estimated mining value of its resources has been roughly estimated to be about $60 billion U.S.D. Its valuable contents would primarily be water, nickel, iron, platinum, cobalt, nitrogen, ammonia, and hydrogen.  The cost of mining etc. could  equally be that high if the technology and equipment were not already in-place. Once in place, however, such technology, equipment and delivery systems could make countless billions/ trillions of dollars mining this and other asteroids as well as space manufacturing and delivery systems to the Earth, providing resources and services to others in their exploration of our solar system for science and/or profit. If a country or company would have this ability alone it could have the possibility of dominating, or increasing its domination of the world economy in the more distant future.

 

http://www.astronomysource.com/tag/asteroid-itokawa/

https://www.statista.com/chart/8093/the-colossal-untapped-value-of-asteroids/