Professor Masahiro Hoshino (Department of Earth and Planetary Science), the first director of the UTokyo Organization for Planetary Space Science (UTOPS), gave his final lecture, “From Earth to Space, the World of Plasma,” on Monday, February 19, 2024, and the lecture was archived on YouTube.
Please watch it from the following link.
The EQUULEUS, an ultra-small spacecraft, has been selected for the Selection Committee’s Special Prize at the 6th Space Exploitation Prize organized by the Japanese Cabinet Office under the title of “Demonstration of Orbit Control Technology in the Earth-Moon Sphere Using an Ultra-small Spacecraft”.
Professor Ryu Funase of UTOPS is involved in the development of the EQUULEUS spacecraft.
Please refer to the following URL for details.
On February 23, 2024, Professor Shogo Tachibana gave a lecture titled “Bringing Back Samples from Small Objects – Ryugu, Bennu, and Beyond” at Hibiki Hall, Taketoyo Community Arts Center Yumetaro Plaza.
Please refer to the following URL for details.
On February 20, 2024 (Tue.), a book by Professor Shogo Tachibana of the UTOPS, titled “What did Hayabusa2 bring back?” was published.
Please refer to the following URL for details.
UTokyo Organization for Planetary Space Science (UTOPS) cooperated with the “Special Exhibition of Asteroid Itokawa and Ryugu Samples in Akashi” held from January 27 (Sat) to February 18 (Sun), 2024, at the 3rd floor exhibition room “Astronomy Gallery” of Akashi Municipal Planetarium.
Samples from the asteroid Itokawa, brought back to Earth by the asteroid explorer Hayabusa in June 2010, and samples from the asteroid Ryugu, brought back to Earth by the asteroid explorer Hayabusa2 in December 2020, were displayed side by side.
In conjunction with the exhibition, Professor Shogo Tachibana gave a lecture entitled “What the Stones of Asteroid Ryugu Have Begun to Tell Us” on January 28, 2024, at the planetarium dome on the second floor of the museum.
For details, please refer to the following URL.
We co-organized the Solar System symposium in Sapporo 2024 from February 13 (Tue.) to 15 (Thu.), 2024, at the Rusutsu Resort in Hokkaido, Japan.
About 40 participants from Japan and overseas discussed the formation and early evolution of the solar system.
On the second day, February 14 (Wednesday), we invited Professor Harold C. Connolly Jr., OSIRIS-REx Mission Sample Scientist, to give a lecture on the return samples from the asteroid Bennu.
Please refer to the following URL for details.
Prof. Shogo Tachibana of UTOPS gave a lecture at the Winter School “Small bodies of the Solar System and their link with extraterrestrial samples” held in Les Houches, France from February 4 (Sun.) to February 9 (Fri.), 2024.
For details, please refer to the following URL.
https://leshouches2024.sciencesconf.org/
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Joint Press Release
Masahiro Hoshino (Professor, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences )
Takanobu Amano, Associate Professor, Department of Earth and Planetary Science
A research group led by Masanori Iwamoto, Project Assistant Professor at the Institute for Fundamental Physics, Kyoto University, Yosuke Matsumoto, Associate Professor at the International Advanced Research Institute, Chiba University, Takanobu Amano, Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Masahiro Hoshino, Professor at the Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Kyushu University, and Shuichi Matsukiyo, Professor at the Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Kyushu University, has successfully reproduced high-speed radio bursts using the supercomputer “Fugaku”.
A fast radio burst is the largest radio explosion in the universe, which suddenly shines in radio waves for a very short time. They are believed to originate from shock waves formed around neutron stars with extremely strong magnetic fields called magnetars, but until now there has been no theoretical support for this belief. The results of this very large-scale simulation of the shock wave by Fugaku have demonstrated for the first time that the radio waves in the simulation are consistent with previous observations and correctly reproduce fast radio bursts.
Since the radio signals of fast radio bursts contain information about the universe they pass through, it is thought that they can be used as a tool to explore the evolution and structure of the universe. To this end, it is important to understand where and how fast radio bursts are generated, and this research is expected to make great strides in this direction and to have a ripple effect on other fields such as cosmology.
The results of this research were published online in the U.S. international journal Physical Review Letters on January 16, 2024.
For more information, please refer to the following
Graduate School of Science web: https://www.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ja/press/10211/
Publication URL: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.035201
