Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2018

4 SMALL BODIES A space mission that sees a group of small probes exploring a primordial asteroid, largely made up of pristine material possibly unchanged for bil- lions of years, is underway. One of the most important goals of the mis- sion is to bring back to Earth samples of that material. Analyzed in the laboratory, the samples will provide key information on the origin of the planets and on the conditions that led to the appearance of life. Hayabusa2 at work on Ryugu by Michele Ferrara revised by Damian G. Allis NASA Solar System Ambassador A nother minor body joins the rather long list of those explored closely by robotic probes. It is the asteroid 162173 Ryugu, a rocky object almost 1 km in diameter that, as a member of the Apollo group, can be considered as poten- tially dangerous, since its orbit can cross that of the Earth. This small asteroid was I n the back- ground, a graphic represen- tation of the ar- rival of the Hayabusa2 probe near the asteroid Ryugu. [DLR] NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2018 discovered on May 10, 1999, by a 1-meter- diameter telescope belonging to the Lin- coln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) project. After having received 1999 JU 3 as a provisional name, the object was defini- tively named (162173) Ryugu in September 2015 by a decision of the Minor Planet Cen- ter. The choice of that name was, so to