Hayabusa-2 has begun close fly-in of man-made crater
Hayabusa-2 has begun its fly-in of Ryugu to make its first close observation of the man-made crater it created on the asteroid’s surface on April 4.
The link takes you to the images downloaded in real time from the spacecraft’s navigation camera. New images appear approximately every thirty minutes. The approach has only just begun, so Ryugu remains somewhat small in the images. This will change as the day proceeds.
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I think those last two images show the crater rotate into view. We live in an age where you can see a bombed asteroid in real time. How cool is that?
John: That large crater rotating into view is not the crater they created. If you look at this global map of Ryugu you can see that crater at about 90 degrees longitude. The large boulders to its southeast make it stand out.
Oh…thanks for the clarification, Mr. Zimmerman.
I was going to post that we’ll have to keep looking as Hayabusa-2 gets closer, but the link says they’ve stopped real time delivery.
John: It does appear they did not get as close to the asteroid as I expected. Apparently all they wanted to do is get a view of this part of the asteroid from a reasonable distance.