A dark, so-called carbonaceous asteroid, was recently sampled for the first time. History was made when the sampling spacecraft (Hayabusa-2) travelled ~3.2 billion kilometres chasing down this asteroid (known as 162173Ryugu) and returned back to Earth.
Our Czech lead consortium is analysing the organic material in 162173Ryugu samples, which makes carbonaceous asteroids among the darkest objects from our Solar System.
The participating institutions in this research are:
- J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry CAS
- CEITEC – Central European Institute of Technology
- TESCAN ORSAY HOLDING, a.s.
- National Technical University of Athens
- Yokohama National University
- JAXA: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
