UTokyo Organization for Planetary Space Science (UTOPS) and Department of Earth and Planetary Science cooperated in the “Asteroid Itokawa and Ryugu Double Sample Exhibition in Nagoya City Science Museum” held from August 6 (Tue) to August 25 (Sun), 2024, at the 5th floor demo space of the Nagoya City Science Museum’s Astronomy Building.

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.

For details, please refer to the following URL.

https://www.ncsm.city.nagoya.jp/visit/attraction/event/2024/itokawa_ryuugu.html

On August 5 (Mon.) and 6 (Tue.), 2024, we held an astronomy training for students from Kariya High School in Aichi Prefecture and Matsumoto-Fukashi High School in Nagano Prefecture. The students observed a sample of Ryugu and took a class about results of Hayabusa2 mission. They estimated the distance to galaxies from photographs of galaxies and used the recession speeds of these galaxies to determine the age of the universe.

On Friday, August 2, 2024, students from Komatsu High School in Ishikawa, Japan, visited UTOPS. We gave them a mock lecture about the Hayabusa2 exploration and the rock brought back from the asteroid Ryugu, and showed them around our laboratory.