Samples from the “Dragon Palace,” the ancient asteroid visited by the Japanese Hayabusa 2 probe, have shed new light on the history of the Earth and the entire solar system.
According to SciTech Daily, scientists at the Paris Institute of Geophysics have identified new isotopic signatures from samples of the asteroid Ryugu, named after the Dragon Palace in Japanese mythology.
These isotopes reveal that Ryugu’s composition is close to the Ivuna-type carbonaceous chondrite group (CI); at the same time, the material of this asteroid is similar to the material of the outer solar system (the area from Jupiter outwards), which accounts for 5-6% of the Earth’s mass.
The results, just published in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy, represent a major step forward in clarifying what helps structure the Earth and other objects in the solar system.
The space rocks to which CI and Ryugu belong are the most primitive asteroids and meteorites in existence and are believed to have a composition corresponding to the earliest solar system. Previous studies have not confirmed that Ryugu is CI, due to problems related to some isotopes.
This is a difficult problem because most meteorites that fall to Earth (including CI prototypes) may become slightly contaminated along the way.
But research published Dec. 12 shows that the ratio of two important isotopes, copper and zinc, on Ryugu matches CI exactly and is completely different from other space rocks.
Thus, its zinc isotopic composition can be used to study the accumulation of moderately volatile elements on Earth, because the material it is made of is certainly also part of the body of the planet and our spirit.
This study also determined that 5% of the Earth is made up of the same things that the “Dragon Palace” was built with.
Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft successfully approached Ryugu in June 2018 and successfully returned to Earth a sample of this ancient asteroid, which contains the most primitive components of the solar system.
The Ryugu sample was divided into many groups of scientists around the world to study it with the common goal of revealing the mystery of the origin and formation of the world to which we belong. This new research proves once again that what the Japanese brought back from the “Dragon Palace” is an invaluable treasure of the world of astronomy.
