Related papers: Asteroid Ryugu Before the Hayabusa2 Encounter

Asteroid Ryugu and asteroid Bennu, which were recently visited by spacecraft Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx, respectively, are spinning top-shaped rubble piles. Other axisymmetric top-shaped near-Earth asteroids have been observed with…

Studying small near-Earth asteroids is important to understand their dynamical histories and origins as well as to mitigate the damage of the asteroid impact to the Earth. We report the results of multicolor photometry of the tiny…

Hayabusa asteroid explorer successfully released the sample capsule to Australia on June 13, 2010. Since the Earth reentry phase of sample return was critical, many backup plans for predicting the landing location were prepared. This paper…

The first direct detection of the asteroidal YORP effect, a phenomenon that changes the spin states of small bodies due to thermal reemission of sunlight from their surfaces, was obtained for (54509) YORP 2000 PH5. Such an alteration can…

Context. (3200) Phaethon is a ~5-km-diameter near-Earth asteroid with a small perihelion distance of 0.14 au and is the parent body of the Geminids. JAXA's DESTINY+ mission will fly by Phaethon in the near future. Aims. We aim to support…

The distributions of size and chemical composition in the regolith on airless bodies provides clues to the evolution of the solar system. Recently, the regolith on asteroid (25143) Itokawa, visited by the JAXA Hayabusa spacecraft, was…

On 13 December 2012, Chang'e-2 conducted a successful flyby of the near-Earth asteroid 4179 Toutatis at a closest distance of 770 $\pm$ 120 meters from the asteroid's surface. The highest-resolution image, with a resolution of better than 3…

Asteroid 2016 HO3, a small asteroid (<60 m) in super fast rotation state (~28 min), and is the target of China's Tianwen-2 asteroid sample-return mission. In this work, we investigate its structural stability using an advanced…

This work presents a mission concept for in-orbit particle collection for sampling and exploration missions towards Near-Earth asteroids. Ejecta is generated via a small kinetic impactor and two possible collection strategies are…

We present a fireball detected in the night sky over Kyoto, Japan on UT 2017 April 28 at ${\rm 15^{h}\,58^{m}\,19^{s}}$ by the SonotaCo Network. The absolute visual magnitude is $M_{\rm v}$=$-$4.10$\pm$0.42mag. Luminous light curves obtain…

This work presents the simulation results of the radio science experiment onboard the proposed Heavy Metal mission to the M-type asteroid (216) Kleopatra. Earth-based radiometric measurements (range and range-rate), complemented by images…

Icy planetesimals are likely to supply volatiles to terrestrial planets and serve as building blocks of icy bodies in the outer Solar System. Samples from the C-type asteroid Ryugu, collected by the Hayabusa-2 spacecraft, indicate a…

This study evaluates a technique for determining the mass of a potentially hazardous asteroid from a high-speed flyby in the context of a rapid reconnaissance planetary defense scenario. We consider a host spacecraft that dispenses a small…

The near-Earth asteroid (NEA) (175706) 1996 FG3 is a particularly interesting spacecraft target: a binary asteroid with a low-DeltaV heliocentric orbit. The orbit of its satellite has provided valuable information about its mass density…

Exploration of asteroids and comets can give insight into the origins of the solar system and can be instrumental in planetary defence and in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). Asteroids, due to their low gravity are a challenging target for…

In this work, we investigate the rotational dynamics of the ginger-shaped near-Earth asteroid 4179 Toutatis, which was closely observed by Chang'e-2 at a distance of $770\pm120~$ meters from the asteroid's surface during the outbound flyby…

The Hayabusa spacecraft rendezvoused with its target asteroid 25143 Itokawa in 2005 and brought an asteroidal sample back to the Earth in 2010. The onboard camera, AMICA, took more than 1400 images of Itokawa during the rendezvous phase. It…

On 13 December 2012, Chang'e-2 completed a successful flyby of the near-Earth asteroid 4179 Toutatis at a closest distance of 770 meters from the asteroid's surface. The observations show that Toutatis has an irregular surface and its shape…

Surface roughness is an important metric in understanding how the geologic history of an asteroid affects its small-scale topography and it provides an additional means to quantitatively compare one asteroid with another. In this study, we…

Asteroid 2867 Steins is one of two flyby targets of ESAs international Rosetta mission, launched in March, 2004. We obtained photometric observations of Steins on April 14-16, 2004 at Table Mountain Observatory, California, in order to…