Hayabusa Post-Landing & Science Results Options

[pandaneko]

Second container was opened today, 13 December, and there nothing to be seen inside. More news will have to follow, of course, but there you are...

Pandaneko

[ElkGroveDan]

Good thing they didn't open it on live television.

[pandaneko]

Good thing they didn't open it on live television.

In responce to this what follows is my translation, but there is another news on the first container. I will translate that as a separate short article, larger grains found amongst those hundreds found in A.

JAXA opened B, they also examined 20 or so of larger grains from A by EM. B was opened on 7 December and the expectation was that long staying time might have taken in more larger grains, but by the first look of it things are not that drastic, it said.B

Outilne of B:

Its structure is more complicated than A and OM will be used to examine it, but tapping of it is expected in later stage just in case.

In the meantime, EM operation is going on with those newly found hundreds of grains. Right now, about 20 of them have been subjected to EM, and about half ogf them are rocky, other are capsule materials.

Those rocky ones are 30 micron at minimum and larger ones are at about 100 micron.

Analysis scheduling of A grains will be decided depending on the result of B, going pararell (A and and hoping to announce, by the year end, what all these mean.

Pandaneko

[pandaneko]

JAXA announced on 13 December that from the first container another 10 new larger grains have been found. They are all of rocky nature.

Pandaneko

[elakdawalla]

Pandaneko, is this information on the Web anywhere (it's OK if it's in Japanese, I'm just looking for a source to link to)? Or did you get it from a print newspaper?

[pandaneko]

Pandaneko, is this information on the Web anywhere (it's OK if it's in Japanese, I'm just looking for a source to link to)? Or did you get it from a print newspaper?

I am afraid I do not remember the source. It is one of the web site news provided by various newspaper groups here. Perhaps, Mainichi Daily, Asahi Evening news, Sankei, Daily Yomiuri, etc. etc. Anyway, I came across it last evening, I think.

No, I did not get it from a printed newspaper. I check, every evening, at least 3 times, half a dozen Web clip news provided locally before I fall asleep.

Pandaneko

[Tesheiner]

I have got this feeling that we may shift this topic into Hayabusa 2 which already exsists. The reason is that Hayabusa 1's news will continue to come in, I think, in the next year and it might become confusing to talk about the two within the same stream...

Done. Further discussions on Hayabusa 2 here, please.

[pandaneko]

This news just in from today's Mainichi newspaper in Japanese

JAXA announced on 27 December that they will start initial analysis during the latter half of Januray next year.

They will be looking at larger grains. Preliminary analysis shows that there is a possibility of carbon with these grains.

Those 1500 grains reported about earlier were very small and handling them was producing problems.　

Then, in mid November, tapping the inverted container produced hundreds of larger grains (maximum size: 0.1 mm) and of these 40 were subjected to preliminary analysis and they found that 30 of them were thought to be from Itokawa.

Therefore, JAXA judged that with these they will be able to perform "initial analysis". Initial analysis will be done by a few domestic institutions by next summer.

Pandaneko

[MahFL]

I wonder what the preliminary analysis consisted of ?

[pandaneko]

I am not too sure about this article, from Kyodo Tsushin (2010/12/27 23:50) which I just came across now. It is so confusing.

Anyway, it says;

On 27th December JAXA announced that another one hundred or so grains were found. It says that whether or not these are from Itokawa is uncertain, but there are enough number of grains by now to be distributed for analysis.

Apparently, these grains were found by inverting the container's different section (it does not mention tapping). Initially, no visible grains were found in this container (or, section), but inverting it produced so many grains of up to 0.1 mm in size.

Now, we have heard a similar story with the first container. This is the limit to my translation ability. However, the time stamp may mean that they are actually talking about the second container's new findings, when they say "different section".

I am very, very unsure about this news.

Pandaneko

[pandaneko]

I am not too sure about this article, from Kyodo Tsushin (2010/12/27 23:50) which I just came across now. It is so confusing.

Anyway, it says;

On 27th December JAXA announced that another one hundred or so grains were found. It says that whether or not these are from Itokawa is uncertain, but there are enough number of grains by now to be distributed for analysis.

Apparently, these grains were found by inverting the container's different section (it does not mention tapping). Initially, no visible grains were found in this container (or, section), but inverting it produced so many grains of up to 0.1 mm in size.

Now, we have heard a similar story with the first container. This is the limit to my translation ability. However, the time stamp may mean that they are actually talking about the second container's new findings, when they say "different section".

I am very, very unsure about this news.

Pandaneko

I can now confirm from Yahoo's quote from the Yomiuri newspaper (21:40 27 Dec) that these one hundred grains are from the second container. These grains range from 0.01 mm to 0.1 mm. International proposals will be invited before next summer, it also said.

Pandaneko

[pandaneko]

There is an article about Hayabusa grains in today's (18 January) Asahi newspaper. According to it:

JAXA announced on 17 January that they will start distributing some of the grains to 8 universities across the country, inlcuding Osaka and Kyushu universities.

Analysis will also start on 21 January at SPRING 8, which is a shynclotron radiation facility just west of Kobe. Analyses will take a few months and will form the database for inviting international proposals for further analysis.

Pandaneko

[pandaneko]

This news just in from the Nikkei newspaper, dated 23 January 2010. My translation follows below.

Osaka University and the SPRING-8 fascility started analysis of Itokawa grains on 22nd January. The analysis scene was opened to the press. They will be using X-ray computer tomography to look into the internal structure of these grains (0.03mm to 0.1 mm in size).

The number of grains they are looking into is about 40 and 12 members of Osaka University's postgraduate students will be working on these grains, day and night (24 hours non-stop, P)

X-ray CT can resolve down to 300 Nm. With each grain 40 minutes will be spent to produce 1800 images, by rotating the grain each time through 0.1 degree.

If certain types of elements were found (and I cannot find the word for this, but it is a combination of phosphorous and calcium, P) another team will further study the grain.

Their studies will be able to relate earth found meteorites to asteroidal grains.

Prof Akira Tsuchiyama of Osaka University said that they would be doing their utmost to get the most out of these grains as scientists, in response to the efforts of Hayabusa engineers

Analysis at SPRING-8 will continue until 26th January and after that the grains will be transported to High Energy Physics Research Institute in Tsukuba (near Tokyo), and after that grains will be moved to Hokkaido and Kyushu Universities to continue working on them.

The whole analysis will be finished in June of this year.

Pandaneko

[pandaneko]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...p;v=07aO8RO6Juk

Above is the URL of the movie at the SPRING-8 analysis site, just starting today (or, yesterday). The fellow at the end of this brief movie is the Osaka University prof, I think. You can see a beam line. Not that terribly interesting, just merely to show actions are being taken.

Pandaneko

[pandaneko]

Further information on Itokawa grains analysis, put together by me from various sources on the web.

After an initial structural analysis at the SPRING-8, where they basically used a scanner like MRI used in medical world (I had one on my hip about a few weeks ago) and that simply returns sliced images of the internal structure of the grains, just true images of the inside of these grains, the grains will be moved to the Photon Factory of the High Energy Accerleration Research Organisaion (KEK) in Tsukuba near Tokyo.

KEK analysis is from 09:00 on 28 January to 09:00 on 3 February under the direction of Prof Tomoki Nakamura of Tohoku University. He also worked on the samples returned by NASA Star Dust probe in 2007. I am sure that many his postgraduate students will be driven to their extremes, 24 hours a day.

The beam line to be used at KEK is BL-3A with the beam energy of 6 KeV at wavelength of 2.1 Amgstrong. Two methods, one is the X-ray diffraction pattern analysis and the other X-ray fuluorescent analysis.

Beam intensity is high at 10 to the 17 photons/sec/mm*2/mrad*2/0.1% b.w, actually this intensity is very, very high as far as I know.

After analysis at KEK the grains will be moved to universities and all analyses will be finished by the end of June.

Pandaneko