Scientists have found out where and when the famous near-Earth asteroid Ryugu was first formed
A new study has shown that this space rock broke off from a larger body and headed towards our planet.
Despite the fact that the now famous asteroid Ryugu is a near-Earth object, its journey to Earth began at a distance of hundreds of billions of kilometers more than 4 billion years ago, scientists have found, writes Space.
Back in 2020, the asteroid Ryugu, which is located at a distance of 97 thousand km from Earth, was visited by the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa-2. He collected rock samples from the asteroid and brought them back to Earth for study. For almost 2 years, researchers have continued to study the composition of the asteroid and make new discoveries.
Astroids like Ryugu are made up of primordial matter left over from the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. That is, the composition of the asteroid stores information about the chemical composition of our star system in the initial period of its existence.
The results of another study of samples from the asteroid Ryugu were presented by scientists from the Argonne National Laboratory of the US Department of Energy. According to physicist Esen Erkan Alp, there is enough evidence that Ryugu formed in the outer solar system and has a composition that is different from that of asteroids that formed closer to the Sun.
Scientists have found that the particles that make up Ryugu are smaller than the particles of asteroids that formed at higher temperatures. Everything also points to the fact that water and ice were once present in the asteroid.
Scientists have concluded that the asteroid Ryugu was part of a larger space rock that appeared 2 million years after the creation of the solar system. This asteroid was composed of various substances, including water and carbon dioxide ice.
About 1 billion years later, the parent body of the asteroid Ryugu collided with another asteroid and broke apart. From these scattered fragments, Ryugu was formed. And after that, he began his journey closer to Earth. Scientists believe that the parent body of the asteroid was at a distance at least beyond the orbit of Jupiter.
Also, analysis of the samples showed that the chemical composition of the Ryugu asteroid resembles the composition of meteorites called CI-chondrites. This is a very rare group of meteorites that have fallen to Earth, and only nine such objects are known.
As part of the study, scientists also found that Ryugu contains a large amount of iron sulfide, pyrrhotite, which is not found in other meteorites.
Near-Earth asteroid Ryugu was discovered 23 years ago and its diameter is more than 900 meters.
Focus has already written about another study of samples from the asteroid Ryugu. Scientists then found out that these samples are the purest substance in the outer part of the solar system , which has ever fallen into the hands of scientists.
The fact that the Ryugu asteroid was not always a large solid stone, but appeared from different fragments, was already mentioned by scientists in a study about which Focus wrote .
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