Andrew Yee
November 1st 05, 01:05 PM
Institute of Space and Astronautical Science
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
Sagamihara City, Japan
2005/11/1
All around a small world!
Hayabusa has finished an exciting excursion around Itokawa. The figure
below indicates the spacecraft position during the latter half of October.
The definition of HP coordinates was described in previous articles
[http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2005/0929.shtml].
After reaching the sub-solar point
[http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2005/1027_itokawa.shtml], Hayabusa
started to travel out of the ecliptic plane to observe the polar regions
of Itokawa. The image below shows the southern hemisphere of Itokawa.
Due to the low altitude and solar elevation angles, we can see detailed
topography in the high-latitude regions. There are even some boulders on
Muses-Sea [http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2005/0922_itokawa.shtml], which
looked very smooth in previous observations. Imagine one of these boulders
flying in space. If it came to the Earth's vicinity, we would observe it
as a tiny independent near-Earth asteroid. It has long been conjectured
that meteorites are fragments of asteroids delivered to the Earth's
surface, but it remains to be proven. The samples of Itokawa collected and
returned by Hayabusa could provide the first direct evidence of the link
between asteroids and meteorites.
[NOTE: Images supporting this release are available at
http://www.isas.ac.jp/e/snews/2005/1101.shtml ]
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
Sagamihara City, Japan
2005/11/1
All around a small world!
Hayabusa has finished an exciting excursion around Itokawa. The figure
below indicates the spacecraft position during the latter half of October.
The definition of HP coordinates was described in previous articles
[http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2005/0929.shtml].
After reaching the sub-solar point
[http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2005/1027_itokawa.shtml], Hayabusa
started to travel out of the ecliptic plane to observe the polar regions
of Itokawa. The image below shows the southern hemisphere of Itokawa.
Due to the low altitude and solar elevation angles, we can see detailed
topography in the high-latitude regions. There are even some boulders on
Muses-Sea [http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2005/0922_itokawa.shtml], which
looked very smooth in previous observations. Imagine one of these boulders
flying in space. If it came to the Earth's vicinity, we would observe it
as a tiny independent near-Earth asteroid. It has long been conjectured
that meteorites are fragments of asteroids delivered to the Earth's
surface, but it remains to be proven. The samples of Itokawa collected and
returned by Hayabusa could provide the first direct evidence of the link
between asteroids and meteorites.
[NOTE: Images supporting this release are available at
http://www.isas.ac.jp/e/snews/2005/1101.shtml ]