In case you missed it - the Coldworm species launched their own probe and it crashed on the surface back in April. This is clearly debris from that crash, so no conspiracy here.
Having said that, I do think those guys on Europa are really getting their sh*t together these days. If it wasn't for a spurious emission from some random Starlink earthsat, they probably would have made it.
Seems like it would have been possible to use an unusual alloy for any pieces of the craft likely to be mixed in with the samples - some strange alloy variation, or an unusual degree of radiation - just to 'tag' the materials and prevent this kind of mixup from happening.
Pardon my ignorance, but as I was typing a message in a chat group linking to this page and briefly mentioning why these rocks are special, I realized that we already have a ton of asteroid material on earth. I get that the outer layers will have burned in the atmosphere, but inside is still intact. Is this useful because we suspect the surface contains different materials? Or the crushing of it on impact? Or is there something else that makes this different from digging up one that came to us rather than us going to them?
Meteorite samples are far from perfect surrogates for asteroids, though. They experience extreme pressures and lose a great deal of their bulk when falling through Earth’s atmosphere. Once they land, they pick up contaminants from the terrestrial environment that are hard to distinguish from native substances. Pristine samples from an asteroid might not only answer questions about the origins of life’s chirality but also offer clues about how water ended up on Earth. One hypothesis suggests that asteroids, which contain some water, may have also seeded it onto our home planet during collisions (Science 2014, DOI: 10.1126/science.1261952). [0]
They shot a probe out into space, had it land on an asteroid, slam a slug into it to get below the surface, land on it again, and pick up rocks. In an era where the headliners are delivery and ride sharing apps, it's worth stepping back and considering this achievement for what it is.
Maybe the rocks themselves aren't special, but where they came from and how we got them is a massive achievement.
Most of the advantage is in tech demonstration [1].
Scientifically, retrieved samples are pristine and more massive, for a single body, than terrestrial samples. Retrieval also enables sampling non-NEOs.
That said, I think your intuition is correct. The scientific value of these missions pales next to their technological value.
> You might therefore wonder if we should instead analyse meteorites. However, meteorites consist of the material that is left over after re-entry through the atmosphere and their structure, along with easily volatile substances, have been lost. They will also be contaminated with substances from the Earth. On the other hand, samples from the asteroids are brought back to Earth in the same condition as they were in space, with the “re-entry capsule” protecting the sample through the atmosphere and landing.
Asteroids on earth have been changed by the environment on earth. Part of it during entry, part of it during impact, part just lying there for long times.
The Ryugu sample provides an opportunity to check our understanding of the changes that happened to asteroids on earth.
Contrary to random pieces falling onto earth they are from a specific astroid and not impacted by earth atmosphere (which burns those stones quite a bit)
Thus they potentially reveal more details and allow comparison with planets and other objects, which might help to identify the origin of the astroid and in turn be a piece in the big story how our solar system came together.
Don't organic molecules break down when getting cooked in the atmosphere? Perhaps they'll find some chemistry that doesn't normally survive the fall to Earth.
> I realized that we already have a ton of asteroid material on earth.
The quantity isn't as high as you might expect.
Most meteor flux is from cometary dust, not asteroids. The Geminids and Taurids are asteroid in origin but no meteorites have been traced to those showers.
Once the atmosphere and oceans take care of the majority, only about 10 meteorites of asteroid origin are recoverable each year.
So wouldn't the obvious thing be that this asteroids composition would be almost identical to the earth's since, of course, our planet was formed by billions of these things crashing into it?
Now maybe that makes them incredibly valuable, and of course I am sure there must be some statistical distribution of asteroids with valuable minerals and those without hardly any, but I feel there is currently this idea that all asteroids are a hugely valuable to be mined no matter.
One thing I'll be interested to see if there are any heavy elements in the samples.
Why? Because anything from the Uranium decay chain effectively dates the creation of those elements.
I belong to the school of thought that believes that spacefaring life is relatively rare. By "rare" I mean we may well be the only one within the Milky Way (within our light cone). There are lots of reasons for this but a lot of people have put a lot of thought into this but it's a whole separate topic.
Anyway, this then raises the issue of the Fermi Paradox. One angle might be the relative abundance of elements heavier than iron.
Elements up to iron are relatively common in the Universe because they're created by nuclear fusion. More specifically, nuclear fusion of elements up to iron produces energy.
Heavier elements are produced by supernovae or the merger of neutron stars and/or black holes (as we've detected by LIGO in recent years). It seems like a neutron star merger is almost required for the relative abundance of such elements we have on Earth. That might be one reason why spacefaring life is "rare".
I've seen some discussion of this for Earth-bound materials suggesting they were created 80-200 million years (IIRC) before the Earth was.
So I'm curious how old samples like these. Are they from the same event or do they have a different origin? Examining such samples from other parts of the Solar System may tell us about the relative likelihood of such events on cosmic timelines.
> “I belong to the school of thought that believes that spacefaring life is relatively rare.”
I wonder why you believe that. From the next sentence it sounds like you consider humanity spacefaring life. We barelly poked our toes out from our planet. We have less than a hundred individuals who visited a different gravity well and they each only spent a relatively short amount of time there. The physical signatures of our “spacefaring-ness” is practicaly undetectable from interstellar distances. How do you know that there arent like tons of us out there?
This is the start of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining . In a surprise move Elon Musk will soon scrap his plans for Mars an become even richer by mining rare earth materials from asteroids ;-)
Forgive my ignorance of what sensors are on that platform. Are they doing spectroscopy? Can they just subtract the aluminum signature out of the data if they have extra of the exact batch they used for comparison?
Unfortunately it showed signs of being the perfect substance to use for a galactic highway, perhaps having fallen off a transport of such material. #bring_a_towel
[+] [-] taylorwc|5 years ago|reply
[0] http://haya2now.jp/en.html
[+] [-] djbebs|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snickms|5 years ago|reply
..well that and their silly 137-base maths,
[+] [-] decasteve|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] generalizations|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TickleSteve|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madengr|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kordlessagain|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tetris11|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lucb1e|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnny313|5 years ago|reply
[0] https://cen.acs.org/physical-chemistry/astrochemistry/tale-2...
[+] [-] SmellTheGlove|5 years ago|reply
Maybe the rocks themselves aren't special, but where they came from and how we got them is a massive achievement.
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|5 years ago|reply
Scientifically, retrieved samples are pristine and more massive, for a single body, than terrestrial samples. Retrieval also enables sampling non-NEOs.
That said, I think your intuition is correct. The scientific value of these missions pales next to their technological value.
[1] https://spacenews.com/op-ed-10-reasons-why-an-asteroid-redir...
[+] [-] m3at|5 years ago|reply
> You might therefore wonder if we should instead analyse meteorites. However, meteorites consist of the material that is left over after re-entry through the atmosphere and their structure, along with easily volatile substances, have been lost. They will also be contaminated with substances from the Earth. On the other hand, samples from the asteroids are brought back to Earth in the same condition as they were in space, with the “re-entry capsule” protecting the sample through the atmosphere and landing.
[+] [-] yourMadness|5 years ago|reply
The Ryugu sample provides an opportunity to check our understanding of the changes that happened to asteroids on earth.
[+] [-] johannes1234321|5 years ago|reply
Thus they potentially reveal more details and allow comparison with planets and other objects, which might help to identify the origin of the astroid and in turn be a piece in the big story how our solar system came together.
[+] [-] anonAndOn|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] warent|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dingaling|5 years ago|reply
The quantity isn't as high as you might expect.
Most meteor flux is from cometary dust, not asteroids. The Geminids and Taurids are asteroid in origin but no meteorites have been traced to those showers.
Once the atmosphere and oceans take care of the majority, only about 10 meteorites of asteroid origin are recoverable each year.
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] someperson|5 years ago|reply
Here's the official NASA source: https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/4806/small-debris-on-the-gro...
Incredible that humans have already started littering on Mars without even setting foot on the planet.
[+] [-] Igelau|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rozab|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] desktopninja|5 years ago|reply
Does this mean Lobo is real?! Oooooh man
[+] [-] cubano|5 years ago|reply
Now maybe that makes them incredibly valuable, and of course I am sure there must be some statistical distribution of asteroids with valuable minerals and those without hardly any, but I feel there is currently this idea that all asteroids are a hugely valuable to be mined no matter.
Is this true?
[+] [-] drak0n1c|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flatiron|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aero-glide2|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cletus|5 years ago|reply
Why? Because anything from the Uranium decay chain effectively dates the creation of those elements.
I belong to the school of thought that believes that spacefaring life is relatively rare. By "rare" I mean we may well be the only one within the Milky Way (within our light cone). There are lots of reasons for this but a lot of people have put a lot of thought into this but it's a whole separate topic.
Anyway, this then raises the issue of the Fermi Paradox. One angle might be the relative abundance of elements heavier than iron.
Elements up to iron are relatively common in the Universe because they're created by nuclear fusion. More specifically, nuclear fusion of elements up to iron produces energy.
Heavier elements are produced by supernovae or the merger of neutron stars and/or black holes (as we've detected by LIGO in recent years). It seems like a neutron star merger is almost required for the relative abundance of such elements we have on Earth. That might be one reason why spacefaring life is "rare".
I've seen some discussion of this for Earth-bound materials suggesting they were created 80-200 million years (IIRC) before the Earth was.
So I'm curious how old samples like these. Are they from the same event or do they have a different origin? Examining such samples from other parts of the Solar System may tell us about the relative likelihood of such events on cosmic timelines.
[+] [-] krisoft|5 years ago|reply
I wonder why you believe that. From the next sentence it sounds like you consider humanity spacefaring life. We barelly poked our toes out from our planet. We have less than a hundred individuals who visited a different gravity well and they each only spent a relatively short amount of time there. The physical signatures of our “spacefaring-ness” is practicaly undetectable from interstellar distances. How do you know that there arent like tons of us out there?
[+] [-] amai|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] L33tCrown|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blackrock|5 years ago|reply
After all, a huge nickel asteroid slammed into what is now Canada, and left a huge nickel deposit there, just waiting to be mined out one day.
The same idea can be said for something like gold or platinum.
[+] [-] zolosa|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Waterluvian|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loopback_device|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ineedasername|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jcims|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chestervonwinch|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tcgv|5 years ago|reply
As to why most readers didn't notice it (myself included):
https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/13946/why-doe...
[+] [-] flerchin|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robga|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] academi|5 years ago|reply
What good is this if they’re guessing at it being a contaminant they introduced?
At least say it’s possible that it isn’t. Maybe it really had metal fragments on it.
[+] [-] ilaksh|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dvh|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acvny|5 years ago|reply