Hayabusa 2 gets close to Ryugu

For the purpose of studying the origin of life, an asteroid explorer Hayabusa 2 was launched four years ago, and now it is getting closer to the target asteroid Ryugu. On 14th, the newest pictures of Ryugu was released. They have recognized that the asteroid looks almost round, approximately 900 km in diameter.

Hayabusa 2, which has been launched from Kagoshima prefecture four years ago, is traveling in Space 300 million km away from the Earth and is going to reach the place 800 km from Ryugu.

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) held a press conference on 14th and showed the newest pictures taken by Hayabusa 2. Enlarged pictures are a little bit rough, however, they could recognize that Ryugu might have almost  spherical shape. Some part of it looks square, so they need further studies to clarify the entire picture. According to the results of analyses, it is known that Ryugu's diameter is 900 meter, the full rotation is 7 hours and 40 minutes.

Hayabusa 2 will reach to the place of the distance of 20 km to Ryugu on 27th this month, then go into its orbit, after observing the situation of surface and the shape, it will try to land and pick up some rock samples.

If some water or organic would be found, it will increase the potential for finding the origin of life. The mission manager of JAXA, Makoto Yoshikawa said, "It is getting closer so we can get more clear pictures in next week. Hopefully, entire figure of  Ryugu will become clearer."

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20180614/k10011477891000.html?utm_int=news_contents_news-main_002