Incredible HD Photos of Asteroid Ryugu

Have you ever wondered what the surface of an asteroid looks like? Well wonder no more, because the world has been blessed with pictures of Ryugu, a diamond-shaped asteroid the Japanese Space Agency has a spacecraft hanging around. The photographer is a little shoebox-sized probe named MASCOT (Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout) who bounced around the asteroid and snapped some pics for us. Thanks, buddy.

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Meet Hayabusa 2, the Japanese space agency's (JAXA) spacecraft made especially for researching asteroids. The spacecraft has already deposited two rovers and a lander on the surface of Ryugu since 2014. MASCOT was chilling on this spacecraft until it's time came to explore Ryugu.

Via CNET
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This is Ryugu from a distance. Scientists have no idea why it is shaped beautifully like a diamond, but they hypothesize that this asteroid was formed during a collision of two different space rocks. Ryugu is one of the darkest celestial bodies in the universe, thus inspiring it's name, which means 'dragon palace' and refers to an old Japanese folktale.

Via Sky and Telescope
Ryugu seen from a distance; the small black shadow in the bottom left corner is a shadow of Hayabusa 2. The asteroid is a total of 2,950 feet wide.

Via Astronomy
MASCOT descended to Ryugu in a surprisingly unsophisticated way; as Hayabusa 2 was orbiting around Ryugu, it let go of MASCOT and let it fall to the surface. The lander freefell for 134 feet for around 6 minutes, then landed and bounced 56 feet back up again, taking pictures all this time. Then it came to a rest.

Via Exteme Tech
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This was all meant to happen. MASCOT has a built in spinning weight that can re-orient and move the tiny craft, and it can even take photos in the dark. At one point, MASCOT got stuck like a turtle on it's back. Fortunately, it's build with a kind of arm that it can use to flip itself over with. MASCOT remained on the asteroid for 17 hours before it's batteries died.

Via Astronomy
The images that MASCOT took revealed that Ryugu is covered in rocks and boulders with two distinct characteristics: either they are bright with smooth faces and sharp edges, or they are dark and crumbly. The distribution of these two types of rocks was even over the surface that MASCOT covered, reinforcing the hypothesis that Ryugu was formed from the collision of two different rocks.

Via Astronomy
Ryugu is also mysteriously absent of dust. Scientists "expect dust to be formed continuously on the surface of Ryugu through exposure to the space environment." So, Ryugu must have some kind of cleaning mechanism - but all that scientists have now are guesses.

Via Giphy
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For a while, MASCOT was famous on Twitter. @haya2e_jaxa tweeted: "This dynamic photo was captured by Rover-1A on September 22 at around 11:44 JST. It was taken on Ryugu's surface during a hop. The left-half is the surface of Ryugu, while the white region on the right is due to sunlight."

Via Spaceref
The future plans for Ryugu are to bring a sample of it back to Earth to examine. Until next time, Ryugu.

Via Giphy