(ORDO NEWS) — Asteroids store a lot of information about the formation and evolution of planets and their satellites.
Analysis of their samples can reveal more about their characteristics and how they may have formed. The Hayabusa-2 mission, which brought material from the Ryugu asteroid, worked in this direction.
Although material samples are still being analyzed, remotely obtained information has revealed three important features: Ryugu is an asteroid fragment composed of small pieces of rock and solid materials clung together under the influence of gravity, it is shaped like two spinning tops, in addition to this , it has a remarkably high organic matter content.
In a recent attempt to answer the question of the origin of the asteroid, a Nagoya University research team has offered an explanation.
In an article published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the researchers suggest that Ryugu, like similar debris asteroids, may actually be the remnants of extinct comets.
To test their hypothesis, the research team ran numerical simulations using a simple physical model to calculate the time it would take for the ice to sublimate and the increase in the asteroid’s spin rate as a result.
The results of the analysis showed that Ryugu most likely spent several tens of thousands of years as an active comet before moving into the inner asteroid belt, where high temperatures evaporated its ice and turned it into an asteroid consisting of debris.
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