Asteroid Ryugu surprises researchers

tech.hindustantimes.com:

In December 2020, a small landing capsule brought rock particles from the asteroid Ryugu to Earth material from the beginnings of our solar system. The Japanese space probe Hayabusa 2 collected the samples. Geoscientists have now discovered areas with a massive accumulation of rare earth and unexpected structures.

Frank Brenker and his team are world leaders in a method that makes it possible to analyse the chemical composition of material in a three-dimensional and entirely non-destructive way and without complicated sample preparation -- yet with a resolution of under 100 nanometres. Resolution expresses the smallest perceptible difference between two measured values. The method's long name is "Synchrotron Radiation induced X-Ray Fluorescence Computed Tomography," in short SR-XRF-CT.

Japan had chosen Ryugu (English: Dragon's Palace) as the probe's destination because it is an asteroid which, due to its high carbon content, promised to deliver particularly extensive information about the origin of life in our solar system. The analyses conducted on 16 particles by the researchers together with the scientists in Frankfurt have now shown that Ryugu is composed of CI-type material. These are very similar to the Sun in terms of their chemical composition. So far, CI-material has only rarely been found on Earth -- material of which it was unclear how much it had been altered or contaminated when entering Earth's atmosphere or upon impact with our planet. Furthermore, the analysis confirms the assumption that Ryugu originated from a parent asteroid which formed in the outer solar nebula.

Until now, scientists had assumed that there was hardly any transport of material within the asteroid due to the low temperatures during