Extraterrestrial material from asteroid Bennu, collected by the NASA spacecraft, OSIRIS-REx, has arrived at our curation facility at ISAS JAXA! Alongside grains from asteroid Ryugu, the team will now embark on the first comparative study between the two asteroids.
Read MoreLanding on the Moon: Behind the scenes of the night when SLIM made history →
A journalist lifted his hand, studying the faces of the JAXA representatives as the microphone was passed to his seat. “Landing was successful…” he began. “…I thought you would look happier?”
Read MoreRebirth: How NASA joined JAXA to reignite the dream of the XRISM mission →
As the XRISM X-ray space observatory completes commissioning and heads towards first light, we caught up with the NASA leaders who were on the ground during the time that JAXA and NASA were working together for the rebirth of the observatory that scientists have been trying to launch for four decades.
Read MoreHow to carry an asteroid around the world →
"It was very early in the morning when I approached the airport customs desk, cradling a protective black box in my arms. Nestled inside the fitted foam interior were two tiny grains as old as the Solar System itself."
Read More20 minutes of terror: SLIM will attempt a pinpoint accurate landing on the lunar surface →
The SLIM mission is about the launch and head to the Moon! But how is SLIM different from previous lunar landers, and what does the mission plan to achieve?
Read MoreThe sample from asteroid Ryugu: summary early 2023 →
On March 20, the extraterrestrial curation team pulled off the protective overalls that guard against any Earthly contamination entering the laboratory, and joined leaders of the mission and initial analysis teams in the ISAS Communication Hall. It has been just over two years since the Hayabusa2 spacecraft returned a sample from asteroid Ryugu to Earth. The teams were together to present a summary of the findings to date.
Read MoreThe search for the ultimate answer: After 42 years at NASA, Jim Green describes the driving force behind the phenomenal progress in space science
"It’s been 42 years. I had to make sure it was 42, because that’s the answer!"
Read MoreThe JUICE Mission: Japan joins ESA to head to the icy moons →
The JUpiter ICy moon Explorer (JUICE) is set to embark on an eight year journey to the icy moons of our Solar System’s largest planet. While the moons have been previously observed by Jupiter explorers such as NASA’s Galileo, this is the first time a dedicated mission will visit the moons with an instrument suite targeted at their exploration. JUICE is an ESA-led mission, with strong involvement from Japan in both the instrument development and science teams.
Read MoreGlobal Space News; One Year of #WebbWOW →
It is said that you cannot recapture the childhood magic of Christmas. But any astronomer watching the skies on December 25 in 2021 will beg to differ. Because the most powerful space telescope ever constructed was about to launch. Our researchers take us through the first year of Webb.
Read MoreMeeting in the shadow of asteroid: Yoshida Fumi has been awarded the DaBoll Award for her leadership in occultation observation →
Despite both radar and optical observations from Earth, asteroid Phaethon was proving elusive. "Phaethon’s orbit is special compared to other near-Earth asteroids,” explains Yoshida Fumi at the Planetary Exploration Research Center, Chiba Institute of Technology, and the University of Occupational and Environmental Heath, Japan. “There’s never a chance to observe Phaethon from Earth with a solar phase angle of zero degrees.”
Read MoreGlobal Space News: Following the DART mission to protect our planet →
In early September of 2022, Scientists around the world were anxiously pondering one important question: if it became necessary... if the future of life on our planet was at stake... could we save the Earth? It was time to find out.
Read MoreAs XRISM prepares to launch, what might the telescope reveal about the largest structures in our Universe? →
"As something falls from a high position to a low position, it gains kinetic energy by losing gravitational potential.” It is a sentence that could belong in any physics textbook. But Associate Professor Yamaguchi Hiroya is not discussing the quintessential student problem of dropping an object into a well. Instead, he is describing the formation of the largest structures in the Universe: galaxy clusters. The activity within these cosmological monoliths have long remained unclear, but this is set to change with the launch of the XRISM X-ray Space Observatory next fiscal year.
Read MoreOMOTENASHI & EQUULEUS: The tiny spacecraft onboard the world's most powerful rocket →
Excitement is mounting for the inaugural launch of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS). But onboard one of the largest rockets ever built are two of the world's smallest spacecraft that will help test technology for future human exploration.
Read MoreThe search for life on other worlds: Suzuki Shino discussing the importance of microbiology in searching for habitable world →
“Life cannot survive unless it can be born somewhere,” points out Associate Professor Suzuki Shino in the Department of Interdisciplinary Space Science at ISAS. “To discover extraterrestrial life, we must therefore understand the kinds of planetary environment that can produce life. So searching for the origin of life and extraterrestrial life are two sides of the same coin.”
Read MoreLiteBIRD aim to find evidence for the greatest expansion in the history of the Universe →
Approximately 13.8 billion years ago, the Universe is believed to have exploded into existence in an event known as the Big Bang. But what happened immediately afterwards has been difficult to determine. Searching for evidence is the task proposed for the ISAS mission LiteBIRD, which is currently scheduled to launch in 2027.
Read MoreDaring the deep space adventure together: Prof. Dr Hansjörg Dittus speaks about the importance of friendship at the ISAS award ceremony →
“We need long term and sustainable collaboration, despite societal and political changes. This is what we call a friendship in our private life, and it is our obligation to establish these institutional friendships as well.”
Read MoreTHE STORY OF VENUS: NASA’S LORI GLAZE TALKS ABOUT THE SELECTION OF THE TWO NEW NASA MISSIONS TO VENUS →
"It was a big and happy surprise, to both me and the whole planetary science community,” describes Dr Lori Glaze, Director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA. “I think many in our field recognised it was well past time for NASA to return to Venus, but to see both the Venus Discovery concepts selected together was pretty amazing.”
Read MoreHELPING TO BRING AN ASTEROID HOME →
Two weeks before Hayabusa2 was due to return to Earth, Caitlin Caruana feared it would all go wrong. Caruana is part of the Australian Space Agency’s (ASA) international engagement team and for the last six months of 2020, she was dedicating nearly all her time to ensuring that JAXA would be able to collect their spacecraft’s sample return capsule when it landed in Australia on December 6, 2020.
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