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SURVEY SAYS ... Once a decade, planetary
scientists take part in a survey run by
the U.S. National Research Council to
determine the community’s research
priorities. The findings of this decadal
survey help Congress, NASA, and other
agencies decide which subjects and
potential missions to fund over the next
10 years. In 2020, researchers submitted
over 500 white papers, making the case
for different topics and mission concepts.
Here are the words that have come up
most often in their titles, with more
common words shown larger. (Note:
Related words have been grouped, like
Mars/martian and lunar/the Moon.) — M.Z.PLANETARY
DECADAL
Early on the morning
of December 6,
Japan’s Hayabusa
safely delivered its
payload — precious
samples taken from
the surface of the
asteroid 162173 Ryugu
— to the Australian
outback. Hayabusa2 launched in 2014 and collected
samples from Ryugu in 2019. As it completed its return
journey with an Earth flyby on December 5, 2020, the
spacecraft released a capsule that left a glowing trail as
it reentered the atmosphere, which photographer Coober
Pedy captured from South Australia. Once in the lab, the
team found a total of 0.2 ounce (5.4 grams) of material —
far more than the 0.004 ounce (0.1 g) they had targeted.
The capsule also contained a piece of metal, marked
(“artificial object”) in the image. The team hasn’t confirmed
its origin, but they think it could be a piece of aluminum
that broke off of the sampler horn when the projectile used
to dislodge samples was fired into the asteroid. — M.Z.Hayabusa2 delivers
asteroid samples
to Earth
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