Hayabusa-2 to make crater on Ryugu later this week
The new colonial movement: Hayabusa-2’s planned attempt to blast a crater on the surface of the rubble pile asteroid Ryugu is now set for later this week.
Hayabusa2 is scheduled to start its descent from 20,000 meters above Ryugu at around 1 p.m. Thursday, Japan time.
The probe is to continue to move down slowly and, at 500 meters above the surface, release a device called an impactor at around 11 a.m. Friday. The impactor is designed to explode 40 minutes later to fire a metal object into the asteroid’s surface at a speed of 7,200 kilometers per hour.
The original point of creating this crater was to allow visual access to the asteroid’s interior for geological study. Now it will also tell us exactly how cemented together this rubble pile is. The cobble might be held together tightly, or loosely. We shall see later this week.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The new colonial movement: Hayabusa-2’s planned attempt to blast a crater on the surface of the rubble pile asteroid Ryugu is now set for later this week.
Hayabusa2 is scheduled to start its descent from 20,000 meters above Ryugu at around 1 p.m. Thursday, Japan time.
The probe is to continue to move down slowly and, at 500 meters above the surface, release a device called an impactor at around 11 a.m. Friday. The impactor is designed to explode 40 minutes later to fire a metal object into the asteroid’s surface at a speed of 7,200 kilometers per hour.
The original point of creating this crater was to allow visual access to the asteroid’s interior for geological study. Now it will also tell us exactly how cemented together this rubble pile is. The cobble might be held together tightly, or loosely. We shall see later this week.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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