Posts by cosmos

Artist impression of Dragonfly on the surface of Titan. (Johns Hopkins APL)

Measuring the waves through Titan: ISAS builds a seismometer for NASA’s Dragonfly mission

November 2, 2019 cosmos
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ISAS, List, Mission

In June this year NASA announced the selection of Dragonfly for the agency’s New Frontiers program. The mission will fly an innovative multi-rotor drone through the atmosphere of Titan, investigating multiple sites on the Saturn moon. The goal is to study chemistry similar to that which supported the development of life on the early Earth. Onboard Dragonfly will be a seismometer designed here at ISAS・JAXA to investigate the interior of one of the most Earth-like locations in the Solar System.

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Microdroplets containing a fluorescent dye, showing the capability of microdroplets to act as primitive compartments (credit: Tony Jia, ELSI)

Building the first cells for the origins of life

September 11, 2019 cosmos
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ISAS, List, Research

When the Hayabusa2 mission returns to Earth at the end of 2020, it will bring with it a sample from a carbonaceous asteroid. This class of asteroid is thought to have pelted the early Earth, delivering water and possibly the first organic molecules with which to begin life. But what happened after that?

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Asteroid Ryugu from an altitude of 6km. Image was captured with the Optical Navigation Camera - Telescopic (ONC-T) on July 20, 2018. (JAXA, University of Tokyo, Kochi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji University, University of Aizu, AIST.)

Hayabusa2: mapping Ryugu’s extraordinary past

April 8, 2019 cosmos
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Hayabusa2, List, Mission

Three research papers have been published this month in the International Journal, Science, detailing the first results from the JAXA/ISAS Hayabusa2 mission to asteroid Ryugu.

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Artist impression of the MMX spacecraft orbiting Phobos. Yellow indicates regions where cold flow is expected to be strongest (credit: Baresi, Ballouz, JAXA).

The Shifting Sands of Phobos

March 19, 2019 cosmos
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ISAS, List, Mission, MMX, Research

The Martian moon, Phobos, has a two-coloured surface that has been difficult to explain. In a Nature Geosciences paper this month, researchers at ISAS・JAXA have suggested a novel explanation that may shed light on how the moons of our red planet were born.

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False colour image of the nightside of Venus captured with the IR2 camera on Akatsuki at 1.735-µm (blue) and 2.26-µm (red) and mix of the two (green). On the nightside of Venus, IR2 observes infrared light coming from the lower atmosphere through clouds, and the shadow of the clouds can be seen in the image. Here, bright and dark are reversed to show clouds in whitish colour.(Credit: JAXA / PLANET-C Project Team)

Akatsuki seeks the source of Venus’s extreme weather

January 24, 2019 cosmos
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Akatsuki, List

Akatsuki may have discovered why Venus’s atmosphere rotates so fast. The reason may play a vital role in the habitability of Earth-sized exoplanets.

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Image credit: ESA

Save the date! Q&A ahead of the launch of BepiColombo to Mercury in October

September 10, 2018 cosmos
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BepiColombo, List, Mission

Q&A with the ISAS Deputy Director General, Masaki Fujimoto, and BepiColombo MIO project scientist, Go Murakami, as we get ready for the BepiColombo launch to Mercury this October.

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Artist impression of the SPICA infrared telescope (credit: JAXA).

SPICA: A telescope to tell our history in the Universe

June 13, 2018 cosmos
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List, SPICA

Last month, the European Space Agency (ESA) officially announced that SPICA was one of three missions being considered for its M5 program. A joint ESA-JAXA mission, SPICA is a space telescope that detects infrared radiation. But what can we learn from the heat signatures in the Universe?

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Artist impression of the Earth's magnetosphere [c. JAXA]

Understanding the aurora: the Grand Challenge Initiative – Cusp

May 2, 2018 cosmos
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List, Sounding Rockets

“The Northern Lights are movies,” says Yoshifumi Saito from the Division of Solar System Sciences at ISAS. “They show the activity of the Earth’s magnetosphere; the region of space where you can feel the our magnetic field.”

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The CAESAR (Comet Astrobiology Exploration SAmple Return) mission will acquire a sample from the nucleus of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, returning it safely to Earth. (Credit: NASA)

The CAESAR mission to collect a sample from a comet

April 2, 2018 cosmos
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CAESAR, List

“I’ve built my career on designing instruments you could put on the top of a rocket,” says Steve Squyres, Principal Investigator for the CAESAR mission. “But these all pale in comparison to what you can do in the laboratory.”

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This artist’s conception shows the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft extending its sampling arm as it moves in to make contact with the asteroid Bennu. Credits: NASA/GSFC

The X-factor: The collaboration between Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx

March 4, 2018 cosmos
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Hayabusa2, ISAS, List

“You cannot sign an international collaboration agreement and expect everything to just work,” says Heather Enos, Deputy Principal Investigator for the NASA OSIRIS-REx mission. “Each country will have different policies that the teams have to be pro-active in navigating.”

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