Japan Hayabusa2 probe photographs 450-meter Torifune in high-speed July 5 flyby, next stop tiny 1998 KY26 in 2031
A near-Earth asteroid that crosses Earth's own orbit just got its first close-up. On July 5 Japan's Hayabusa2 probe flew past Torifune, a 450-meter rock about 100 million km away, capturing it with optical and infrared cameras. Torifune is an Apollo-group object. Source: JAXA.
A near-Earth asteroid that crosses Earth's own orbit just received its first close-up. On July 5, Japan's Hayabusa2 probe carried out a high-speed flyby of Torifune, a 450-meter (1,475-foot) space rock about 100 million kilometers from Earth, and sent home images taken with its optical navigation camera and its mid-infrared camera. The infrared view maps surface temperature and roughness, data that tells scientists how such a body is built and how it would behave if its orbit ever brought it near us. Torifune completes one trip around the sun every 383 days, rotates every five hours, and belongs to the Apollo group, the class of near-Earth asteroids whose orbits cross Earth's. The pass was not part of Hayabusa2's original plan and was described by its science team as a risky operation. This is the same spacecraft that returned samples of asteroid Ryugu to Earth in 2020; it is now headed for the tiny asteroid 1998 KY26, which it is expected to reach in 2031. Every close pass adds to the growing catalog of Earth-crossing objects that planetary defense work depends on. Source: JAXA via Space.com.