#jaxa

#jaxa

Hear Mercury for the First Time: ESA BepiColombo's First Sound from the Planetary FlybyThe ESA's BepiColombo spacecraft did a successful Mercury flyby earlier this October. During its flyby, the spacecraft not only captured some stunning photos of the planet's surface. It also captured some audio from the journey. Engineers from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) have transformed this audio data from the spacecraft into a sonification, and now we can hear it with our own ears.It is clarified, however, that these sounds are not acoustic waves. In reality, they are spacecraft vibrations captured by the Italian Spring Accelerometer (ISA) instrument aboard the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), one of the satellites that comprise the BepiColombo spacecraft.Still, it's really cool!(Image Credit: Europlanet via Twitter)#Astronomy #Space #ESA #JAXA #Mercury #BepiColombo #Sonification

Spacecraft BepiColombo Took a Snapshot of Venus During a Gravity Assist ManeuverThe spacecraft BepiColombo, a joint mission by the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan's space agency JAXA, flew by Venus on its way to Mercury.Earlier this week, while performing a "gravity assist maneuver," BepiColombo took a snapshot of Venus in black and white. The spacecraft was 1,573 km (977 miles) away from the planet - at its closest, the spacecraft was just 552 km (342 miles) away.In the photo, you can see the high-gain antenna on the Mercury Planetary Orbiter at the top-left corner of the image.If you're wondering about the name, BepiColombo is named after Giuseppe "Bepi" Colombo (1920 - 1984), a scientist at the University of Padua, Italy, who first suggested the gravity assist maneuver.Image: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM#spaceexploration #venus #BeliColombo #spacecraft #MercuryPlanetaryOrbiter #mercury #ESA #JAXA

Soil From Ryugu Asteroid has Ingredients for Creating LifeInitial analysis by Eizo Nakamura of Okayama University showed that soil sample from the Ryugu asteroid, brought back to Earth by Hayabusa 2, contains enough hydrogen and molecules of organic substances that can be ingredients of life.From Asahi Shimbun:The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency announced the discovery on June 17 at a news conference it held prior to starting a full-scale analysis of the soil samples brought back by the space probe.The discovery is expected to assist in investigating the theory that the elements that created life on Earth arrived from space....Nakamura said that a large number of hydrogen atoms, believed to have constituted water molecules, were discovered in soil collected from and below the surface of Ryugu. Hayabusa 2 collected the underground soil samples by blasting an artificial crater on the asteroid.#asteroid #RyuguAsteroid #Hayabusa2 #JAXA