Science -- and scientists -- keep each others' best interests in mind. They. . . share. Communicate, and renew old friendships, in that way.
So it is -- as Hanukkah ends, and Christmas-time gift-giving arrives, that JAXA has shared a goodly portion of the primordial rocks and dust, from its Hayabusa-2 mission of 2018:
. . .Just as fossils hold clues to the history of life, asteroids hold clues to the history of the solar system. Rare samples collected from the surface of an asteroid by NASA and its international partners are helping to decipher these clues.
Now, scientists in the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Division at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston are among those able to study samples retrieved by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Hayabusa2 spacecraft and returned to Earth in late 2020.
JAXA is sharing a portion of these samples with NASA, and in exchange, NASA will provide JAXA a percentage of a sample of asteroid Bennu, when the agency’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft returns to Earth from the space rock in 2023.
NASA received 23 millimeter-sized grains and 4 containers of even finer material from Ryugu -- 10 percent of the total collected – from JAXA on Nov. 30. A JAXA official and a JAXA scientist delivered the asteroid fragments to Johnson, meeting with agency team members to complete the sample transfer and receiving training on safe handling procedures for their portion of the OSIRIS-REx samples. . . .
And, as ever -- regular readers do know that. . . rocks from the basement of time do fire my. . . imagination. For under those rocks, in many of the rivers of the mountainous West of my youth. . . are timeless raindrops -- and under those raindrops, are the words. . . and some of those words. . . are my words, to you. . . smile. Go be excellent to one another.
नमस्ते
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