(ORDO NEWS) — In June 2018, the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa-2 retrieved samples from the asteroid Ryugu and successfully returned them to Earth.
Researchers at Tohoku University have analyzed the samples and determined what they believe may be the oldest solid bodies in the solar system.
The work focused on calcium and aluminum rich inclusions (CAIs) and spherical mineral grains, which were designated as chondro-like objects.
These grains are key components of chondrite meteorites.
The Ryugu samples gave scientists the opportunity to study material collected from the asteroid, which at the time of sampling was about 15,000,000 kilometers from Earth.
Astonishing data from samples studies suggested that Ryugu originally formed much farther from Earth, in the outer reaches of the solar system.
The key takeaway from the analysis by the Tohoku University team is that the grains in the Ryugu samples were likely transported from the interior of the early solar system to a much more distant region where the original asteroid Ryugu formed.
The team’s findings are partly based on an analysis of the ratios of different oxygen isotopes in the samples.
“Now we want to analyze more of these oldest solar system solids in Ryugu to try to understand the mechanisms behind radial outward transport in the early solar nebula,” says geochemist Daisuke Nakashima of the Early Solar System Research Group at Tohoku University.
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