KYODO NEWS - 15 hours ago - 15:34 | All, WorldA team of Japanese and South Korean researchers will start observing Ryugu asteroid next fall using a special telescope in Hokkaido, northern Japan, in hopes of gaining an understanding of how asteroids are formed, a member said Monday.
The team aims to find out whether there are sand particles on Ryugu using Hokkaido University's Pirka Telescope in the city of Nayoro, which is capable of detecting tiny particles measuring as small as a thousandth of a millimeter.
(Photos courtesy of JAXA)The observation is scheduled to be conducted between October 2020 and the first half of 2021.
It has touched down on Ryugu twice, successfully collecting the first-ever asteroid subsurface samples after creating an artificial crater by shooting a copper projectile at the asteroid.
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