China is preparing a large-scale study of space objects in the Solar System
Kyiv • UNN
The Chinese mission Tianwen-2 intends to deliver a sample of the asteroid Kamoʻoalewa to Earth. The mission will also make a six-year journey to comet 311P/Panstarrs.
China's ambitious "Tianwen-2" mission aims to expand and improve China's capabilities in planetary exploration.
UNN reports with reference to NewScientist.
Details
"Tianwen-2" (Tianwen-2) is the second mission of the Chinese program, which began in 2020 with "Tianwen-1", which delivered the "Zhurong" rover to Mars. The current plans are to obtain a 100-gram sample from the asteroid Kamoʻoalewa and return it to Earth. This will be the first goal of the mission. The second is to make a trip of about six years to the comet 311P/Panstarrs. Scientists expect that "Tianwen-2" of this comet by 2034.
It should be noted that this will not be the first mission to try to return asteroid samples to Earth. NASA's OSIRIS-REx and JAXA's Hayabusa missions have already done so.
But this will be China's first mission to an asteroid, involving the return of a rock sample. Also, obviously, the trip is the first mission to a unique type of body called quasi-satellites.
Reference
Quasi-satellites, such as Kamoʻoalewa, do not orbit the Earth, but move in a similar orbit around the Sun, elliptically orbiting our planet. In their research, scientists came to the theory that this satellite is a fragment of the Moon. It was ejected millions of years ago as a result of a collision with an asteroid.
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