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JAXA地球外物質研究グループ (ASRG) "If you visit one of our exhibits of the sample from asteroid Ryugu in Japan, or in collaboration with the Science Museum in the UK or Cité de l’espace in France, you’re looking at a genuine piece of our planet’s past."—Elizabeth Tasker, Solar System Science (full quote in image)

From today (12/17) until 01/13, the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo will host an exhibit of sample grains from all three asteroid sample return missions, Itokawa (JAXA Hayabusa), Ryugu (JAXA Hayabusa2) & Bennu (NASA OSIRIS-REx)! Details 👉 kahaku.go.jp/event/2024/12h…

I'm having trouble adding alt text to some images. When I add the alt text, twitter (on the web browser) throws an error and loses the post. Any ideas? It's oddly not happening on all images... just the two I'm trying to post on another account! I've tried .png and .jpg versions.

Almost one year ago (Jan 20, 2024) one little Moon lander made a successful soft landing... on its nose... on the lunar surface. And then promptly refused to stop analysing rocks through 3 lunar night. SLIM mission operations are now over, and here is a summary.

✨The 6th Mercury swing-by for the BepiColombo mission (carrying Mio みお (MIO)) 📣✨ This is the last swing-by before arrival at Mercury in 2026/11. Join us for the live broadcast (in Japanese) from the operation room 💻📺: 2025/01/08 (Wed): 2pm~4pm JST youtube.com/live/9kAJThin6…

In August, the IAU General Assembly was held in Cape Town. As one of the largest meetings for the astronomy community, we knew we had to go hybrid. Our team at The Future of Meetings created a full virtual venue, in addition to live talks & Slack channels. Here's how we did:

And that's an (official) wrap! After successfully landing on the lunar surface almost exactly one year ago, the SLIM Project officially dissolved on January 1. How tidy!

When bacteria was found in an asteroid Ryugu grain in a laboratory in London, the media questioned whether a sample returned from space could avoid contamination from Earth. No contamination has been found at JAXA. But let's take a look at what that takes... (my latest on Cosmos)

The #CosmosBlog reports on the steps needed to prevent our celestial samples from being contaminated by Earth’s environment. The article describes the preparations that have already begun to protect the sample that #MMX will return from the Martian moon, Phobos 🥼

A year ago today, SLIM made a "pinpoint" high precision landing on the Moon, demonstrating the use of "smart eyes" to autonomously navigate to the landing site. This afternoon, ISAS is publishing minute Q&As with the SLIM team, filmed & edited by my amazing intern, Hattori Kikyo!

As the first time the IAU General Assembly had come to Africa, innovation and accessibility were at the heart of the meeting. A hybrid meeting was essential, and our team The Future of Meetings developed a fully virtual venue that could be explored on computer, phone and #VR headset.

My review for nature on Jason Steffen's excellent new book on the Kepler Space Telescope, "Hidden in the Heavens". Steffen offers a first-hand account of the mission, emphasising the diversity of skills and considerations that were required to launch the space telescope.

Thank you for the review Elizabeth. "Hidden in the Heavens is a fabulous insight into the myriad components that went into NASA’s first dedicated planet-finding mission..."

Our "ISAS News" newsletter is really nice, but only published in Japanese! So I asked if we might do short English summaries so people could get a glimpse of the content. Google translate (or similar) does a solid job, if you'd like to browse the whole thing!

Last year, our #CosmosBlog discussed the importance of planetary defence. Now, a notification has been issued for asteroid 2024 YR4, which has a few percent probability of Earth impact in 2032. Our researchers comment on the alert, and what humanity can do to protect our planet.

Our latest edition of #ISASNews begins with a summary of a few of the results from the analysis of the asteroid #Ryugu sample, returned by the #Hayabusa2 mission 🛰️. Read the complete edition of ISAS News in Japanese here ➡️ isas.jaxa.jp/outreach/isas_….

More stories in #ISASNews include the TSUKUYOMI telescope for the Moon 🌝, the challenges with crossing international borders, and memories from launching the M rocket series at Uchinoura 🚀. Read the full articles in Japanese here: isas.jaxa.jp/outreach/isas_…

#ISASNews in March looks at the next generation of landing gear that could change the way we visit Mars, the development of lunar robots, and the hunt for the signatures of dark matter in Antartica. The full edition of ISAS News is here (in Japanese)➡️ isas.jaxa.jp/outreach/isas_…

"K2-18b. We urgently need to get our shit together about life detection" girlandkat.com/research-blog/… by Elizabeth Tasker Elizabeth Tasker #astrobiology #astrochemistry #astronomy

[#CosmosBlog] Can we avoid the 7 minutes of terror? Testing out the next generation of rotating detonation rocket engines 🚀, and an alternative way to make the challenging descent to the Martian surface… with the inflatable RATS 🐀! Read on Cosmos 🔗: cosmos.isas.jaxa.jp/avoiding-the-7…