Subaru Telescope Takes Montage of Hayabusa's Return to Earth

By Nancy Atkinson - June 15, 2010 at 5:46 AM UTC | Space Exploration
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The world watched and waited for the Hayabusa spacecraft to make its return to Earth on June 13, 2010 and the people of Japan -- who built and launched the little spacecraft that could (and did!) -- were especially hopeful in watching and waiting. Japan's Subaru Telescope (although located on Mauna Kea in Hawaii) turned its expectant eyes towards Hayabusa and captured the spacecraft's flight between the Moon and Earth in 11 different images.

A note from the Subaru Telescope team:

During the busy time preparing the observations, Doctor Masafumi Yagi and his team managed to maneuver the telescope just in time to catch Hayabusa before it disappeared down south in the twilight sky. At that time, Hayabusa was a little less than half way between Moon and Earth. Five seconds exposures, each spaced by 35 - 50 seconds in the V filter with Suprime Cam, it showed up in clear trace at the position expected to be. Brightness is estimated to be only 21 magnitudes. At this level, one can see a background galaxy clearly.

We are waiting to hear more from the project team at ISAS/JAXA. In the meantime, congratulations to all who are involved in this unprecedented endeavor.

A GIF animation of the 11 images is available here

-- but be warned, the file is huge. You can click on the top image for a full-sized huge-ified image, too.

And here are some images of the recovery teams who picked up the sample return canister in the Woomera Prohibited Area in Australia. The canister will be taken to Japan and opened in a few weeks, or perhaps months, after rigorous testing. Only then will we find out if any asteroid samples made it in the canister for the ride back to Earth.

[caption id="attachment_66376" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Recovery team makes sure all is safe with the sample return canister. Credit: JAXA"]

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[caption id="attachment_66374" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="The recovery team handles the heat sheild for the Hayabusa sample return capsule. Credit: JAXA, Hayabusa Twitter feed."]

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[caption id="attachment_66379" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="JAXA's Hayabusa space capsule is transported inside a box to a clean room inside the Instrumentation Building at the Woomera Test Range, South Australia. Credit: Australian Science Media Centre"]

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You can see more images of the canister retrieval at the

Hayabusa Twitpic page

and the

Australian Science Media Centre's Flickr page

Source:

Subaru

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com