Two years and one week ago , the Nipponese spacecraft Hayabusa-2 render to Earth a special cargo : samples of cloth collected onAsteroid Ryugu . Analysis of the precious few grams of soil from the surface and subsurface of the asteroid has revealed new insights into the past times of our planet and the whole solar system .
An international team of scientist go by Dr Marine Paquet and Dr Frédéric Moynier , at Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris , examine the composition of the sample . They were specially interested in the isotopic signatures of zinc and copper . Every chemical element comes in multiple versions look on the act of neutron in its core . This does n’t exchange its chemical properties , but changes its forcible ones as isotope have different masses . Some isotopes are not - unchanging , decaying after a while .
The ratio of isotope so becomes a chemical substance fingerprint for material – and when it comes to asteroid and meteorite sampling , this not only tells us about the current penning but also tell us how these objects formed .
In the case of asteroid Ryugu , the team confirmed that the isotopic signature tune of copper and zinc makes it similar to the Ivuna meteorite , something that was put forward beforethe breakthrough of amino acidsin the samples was announced . TheIvuna meteoritefell in Tanzania on December 16 , 1938 , and it is part of the CI group of carbonaceous chondrites . There are only nine of them in the world , making them some of the rarest . They are believed to have shape in the outer solar system and finally migrated inwards .
Ryugu demonstrate similarity in makeup to other carbonaceous chondrite , so researchers wonder if another character might be a better fit . Zinc and copper are a place where they differ – and for this grounds , scientists take these elements to make that psychometric test reassert the connecter to the CI chondrites . The Zinc touch can also be used for another measure with impacts on the account of our planet .
fabric from Ryugu can be considered pristine when it comes to set up the report of the former solar system . meteorite from asteroids that formed nearer to the Sun have a different note value from Ryugu , and Earth has a different time value still , somewhere in between the two . fortify with that , researchers were able to estimate that asteroid similar to Ryugu must have add about six percent of the Earth ’s wad .
These finding were present in the journalNature Astronomy .
