Astronomers have gathered new information on the asteroid 1998 KY26 utilizing observatories throughout a number of continents, together with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Giant Telescope (ESO’s VLT). These coordinated observations present that the asteroid is sort of 3 times smaller than earlier estimates and rotates way more quickly. The thing is the deliberate 2031 vacation spot for Japan’s Hayabusa2 prolonged mission, and the up to date measurements present important particulars for planning spacecraft operations solely six years earlier than the encounter.
“We discovered that the truth of the article is totally completely different from what it was beforehand described as,” says astronomer Toni Santana-Ros of the College of Alicante, Spain, who led the Nature Communications examine. By combining the brand new outcomes with earlier radar information, the crew decided that the asteroid is barely 11 meters throughout, sufficiently small to suit contained in the dome of the VLT unit telescope used throughout the observations. Additionally they found that the asteroid completes a rotation in roughly 5 minutes. Earlier work recommended a diameter of about 30 meters and a rotation interval nearer to 10 minutes.
A Smaller and Sooner Asteroid Raises Mission Challenges
“The smaller dimension and sooner rotation now measured will make Hayabusa2’s go to much more fascinating, but additionally much more difficult,” says co-author Olivier Hainaut, an astronomer at ESO in Germany. The fast spin and tiny dimension imply that performing a landing maneuver, during which the spacecraft briefly makes contact with the floor, will probably be harder than mission groups initially anticipated.
1998 KY26 is deliberate as the ultimate goal of the Japanese Aerospace eXploration Company (JAXA)’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft. Throughout its major mission, Hayabusa2 visited the 900-meter-diameter asteroid 162173 Ryugu in 2018 and returned samples to Earth in 2020. With adequate gasoline remaining, the spacecraft was assigned an prolonged mission ending in 2031, when it would attain 1998 KY26 to research very small asteroids. This encounter will mark the primary time a spacecraft visits an asteroid of such tiny dimension, as all earlier missions have explored our bodies lots of or 1000’s of meters vast.
Floor Telescopes Seize Uncommon Particulars of a Tiny Goal
To help mission planning, Santana-Ros and colleagues noticed 1998 KY26 from Earth. As a result of the asteroid is each extraordinarily small and faint, the crew wanted to attend till the article made a comparatively shut cross by Earth after which depend on a few of the largest out there telescopes, together with ESO’s VLT within the Atacama Desert of northern Chile.
The observations point out that the asteroid has a vivid floor and might be a strong piece of rock, probably originating from a fractured planet or one other asteroid. Even so, the researchers can not utterly rule out that it’d as a substitute be a cluster of loosely sure particles. “We’ve by no means seen a ten-meter-size asteroid in situ, so we do not actually know what to anticipate and the way it will look,” says Santana-Ros, who can also be affiliated with the College of Barcelona.
Insights for Future Exploration and Planetary Protection
“The wonderful story right here is that we discovered that the dimensions of the asteroid is corresponding to the dimensions of the spacecraft that’s going to go to it! And we had been in a position to characterize such a small object utilizing our telescopes, which signifies that we are able to do it for different objects sooner or later,” says Santana-Ros. “Our strategies may have an effect on the plans for future near-Earth asteroid exploration and even asteroid mining.”
“Furthermore, we now know we are able to characterize even the smallest hazardous asteroids that might influence Earth, such because the one which hit close to Chelyabinsk, in Russia in 2013, which was barely bigger than KY26,” concludes Hainaut.
The findings seem within the paper titled “Hayabusa2♯ mission goal 1998 KY26 preview: decametre dimension, excessive albedo and rotating twice as quick” revealed in Nature Communications.
The analysis crew contains T. Santana-Ros (Departamento de FÃsica, IngenierÃa de Sistemas y TeorÃa de la Señal, Universidad de Alicante, and Institut de Ciències del Cosmos (ICCUB), Universitat de Barcelona (IEEC-UB), Spain), P. Bartczak (Instituto Universitario de FÃsica Aplicada a las Ciencias y a las TecnologÃas, Universidad de Alicante, Spain and Astronomical Observatory Institute, School of Physics and Astronomy, A. Mickiewicz College, Poland [AOI AMU]), Ok. Muinonen (Division of Physics, College of Helsinki, Finland [Physics UH]), A. Rożek (Institute for Astronomy, College of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory Edinburgh, UK [IfA UoE]), T. Müller (Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Germany), M. Hirabayashi (Georgia Institute of Expertise, United States), D. Farnocchia (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Expertise, USA [JPL]), D. Oszkiewicz (AOI AMU), M. Micheli (ESA ESRIN / PDO / NEO Coordination Centre, Italy), R. E. Cannon (IfA UoE), M. Brozovic (JPL), O. Hainaut (European Southern Observatory, Germany), A. Ok. Virkki [Physics UH], L. A. M. Benner (JPL), A. Cabrera-Lavers (GRANTECAN and Instituto de AstrofÃsica de Canarias, Spain), C. E. MartÃnez-Vázquez (Worldwide Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab, USA), Ok. Vivas (Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory/NSF NOIRLab, Chile).
