Hayabusa Post-Landing & Science Results Options

[nprev]

Thank you yet again for your terrific reporting & efforts, Pandaneko! We wouldn't know ANYTHING about what was going on without you.

Sounds like a very rigorous analytical campaign is beginning. We should know positively whether at least some of the grains are from Itokawa in relatively short order, I'd imagine.

[pandaneko]

What follows is the news provided by one female PhD student of the Tohoku University team who just finished analysis at the Photon Factory of KEK near Tokyo. My translation is;

4 Feb 2011

Analysis completed! Outstanding result!

Our beam time at the Factory came to an end in the morning of 4 February. Our one week at the Factory has been 24 hours a day operation. How actually experiments were conducted will be provided little by little from now on. Today, we packed everything and left the Factory to get back to our university in the far north.


Prof Tomoki Nakamura said, with a smile, that experiments went very well and that fantastic data were obtained. The findings will be made public at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC2011) in US starting on 7 March.

Here in Japan, it will be given at the PF Sympo starting on 14 March.

End of translation

P

[pandaneko]

Oh, I forgot to mention that Dr Michael E Zolensky from NASA Johnson Space Centre was there all the time involved in the Phton Factory analysis along with the Tohoku University team members.

My apologies, due to the fact that his name did not appear in the main text, which I simply copied and pasted, but he was firmly a member of the team from supplemental information.

P

[Paolo]

note that there are a few pictures of Hayabusa samples, plus an article and a scheme of how the two sample chambers work in issue 358 of ISAS News.
The issue also contains an article on IKAROS

[pandaneko]

Paolo

I think I will also translate the ISAS pages, because it seems simpler to do as the whole thing is all text, it seems, and I can CPO on these.

However, I will not translate all of the text, it is just too much...

I will do that after translating the science pages of JAXA report on IKAROS.

As far as I am concerend simple and primitive text pages are nothing in terms of translation. I can do a few pages in 10 minutes, I think, but if files contain structures like tables and graphs, then I will have to handwrite my translation on pieces of paper and type them out again into the forum space, which takes up a lot of time.

However, I remain optimistic about ISAS pages. How you get this sort of information...I am amazed.

P

[Paolo]

pandaneko
I am just keeping track of all JAXA-related posts on the social networks (twitter "in primis") and on several forums.
anyway, I thank you a lot for the translations, but don't feel obliged to translate everything I post.
I believe that there are some documents that probably contain no additional informations to those already available. I really don't think it's worth the trouble translating, in these case

[PaulM]

I don't know if this has been posted elsewhere? According to this link, the upcoming Lunar And Planetary Conference from the 7th to 11th of March will include "early science results from a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency mission, called Hayabusa, that returned the first particle samples from an asteroid":

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/feb/H...Lunar_Conf.html

[Drkskywxlt]

Today was the Hayabusa team's day to shine as they presented their first science results. They recovered >1500 particles, most around 10 microns in diameter, but some as large as 180 microns.

The way they recovered most of the particles was hilarious. After trying subtler methods like the teflon spatula, they put a piece of quartz glass over the sample container, turned it upside down and BANGED ON IT with a screwdriver! This actually caused the largest dust grains to be recovered!

I propose we call this "Hy-abusing" your samples

[nprev]

Nice blog summary of early analysis of Itokawa grains presented at LPSC.

[Paolo]

The latest issue of Science has lots of papers on the analysis of Hayabusa samples (requires access)

and notice the cover

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[stevesliva]

The latest issue of Science has lots of papers on the analysis of Hayabusa samples (requires access)

Interesting conclusion in this abstract:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6046/1128.abstract

Noble gas isotopes were measured in three rocky grains from asteroid Itokawa to elucidate a history of irradiation from cosmic rays and solar wind on its surface. Large amounts of solar helium (He), neon (Ne), and argon (Ar) trapped in various depths in the grains were observed, which can be explained by multiple implantations of solar wind particles into the grains, combined with preferential He loss caused by frictional wear of space-weathered rims on the grains. Short residence time of less than 8 million years was implied for the grains by an estimate on cosmic-ray–produced 21Ne. Our results suggest that Itokawa is continuously losing its surface materials into space at a rate of tens of centimeters per million years. The lifetime of Itokawa should be much shorter than the age of our solar system.

[Holder of the Tw...]

Wow! Does the paper speculate as to what the erosional mechanism(s) is(are)? Likely micrometeoroid would be in the mix. Presumably not solar wind, at least very much.

[helvick]

I'm delighted to see that "It is quick the ぶ" really has delivered and is getting recognised for it. Congratulations (again) to the team.

[Paolo]

Wow! Does the paper speculate as to what the erosional mechanism(s) is(are)?

just finished reading the paper. no explanation of the mechanism is given, but the weak gravity could easily help. the erosion is also given as an explanation for the relative lack of regolith on Itokawa. only 20 p.c. of its surface is covered with regolith

[Paolo]

the supporting material for one of the papers discusses the gas that was reportedly detected when the sample container was opened in near vacuum (0.01 Pa). It seems to have been a small amount of terrestrial air that had leaked through two O-rings in the preceding days