UTokyo Organization for Space and Planetary Science (UTOPS) cooperated with the exhibition “Sample Return from Asteroids” held from December 17, 2024 (Tue) to January 13, 2025 (Mon) in the permanent exhibition room on the 2nd floor of the Earth Hall, National Museum of Nature and Science.
Samples from the asteroids Itokawa and Ryugu, brought back to Earth by JAXA’s asteroid explorers Hayabusa and Hayabusa2, and sample from the asteroid Bennu, brought back to Earth by NASA’s asteroid explorer OSIRIS-REx, were displayed side by side. The samples of the three asteroids were exhibited to the public simultaneously for the first time in the world.
01/13/2025Cooperated in the special exhibition “Sample Return from Asteroids” at the National Museum of Nature and Science はコメントを受け付けていませんNews, UTOPS-News Like
Prof. Shogo Tachibana gave an invited talk on Ryugu and Bennu at the symposium “Life in Universe: Diversity in the building blocks, environments, and biological functions” at the 47th Annual Meeting of the Molecular Biology Society of Japan from November 26 (Wed.) to 29 (Fri.), 2024.
On Saturday, November 9, 2024, Professor Shogo Tachibana of UTOPS gave a space science class to the 6th graders of Nakamura Elementary School in Nerima Ward, Tokyo.
While reviewing and continuing the stories about Ryugu and Hayabusa2 told to the 5th graders in each class, Professor Tachibana answered questions about the space and the Earth that had been asked in advance.
Please refer to the following URL 「宇宙のお話」 for the scenes of the day.
Dr. George Cody, Earth and Planets Laboratory, Carnegie Science, visited UTOPS and gave lectures “The Ancient and complex history recorded in organic solids in meteorites, and why this is important!” (introductory) and “Complexity in primitive chondrite heating and fluid chemical histories: a potentially unrealized major complexity” (advanced).
He talked about the importance and what we can learn about extraterrestrial organic materials.
On Saturday, October 19, 2024, we invited elementary and junior high school students and their parents to the Hongo Campus for the UTOPS event “Let’s Make Ryugu Bath Bombs!”
We talked about Ryugu and Hayabusa2, and made bath bombs together.
10/19/2024UTOPS Event “Let’s Make Ryugu Bath Bombs!” はコメントを受け付けていませんNews, UTOPS-News Like
Professor Shogo Tachibana (UTOPS/Department of Earth and Planetary Science) won the 2023 Association Award from Japan Association of Mineralogical Sciences (JAMS) at the 2024 Annual Meeting of JAMS (September 12-14, 2024).
10/02/2024Professor Shogo Tachibana won the 2023 Association Award from Japan Association of Mineralogical Sciences はコメントを受け付けていませんNews, UTOPS-News Like
Professor Shogo Tachibana of UTOPS and Associate Professor Yoshiko Baba of the Office of Research Strategy and Development (ORSD), Graduate School of Science, UTokyo participated in the session “Frontiers of Research Knowledge with UTokyo URA” at “esse-sense Forum 2024 – Toward Social Implementation of Research Knowledge -” (September 24-25) organized by esse-sense, one of the largest researcher media in Japan.
Joint Press Release Shogo Tachibana (Professor, UTOPS, Department of Earth and Planetary Science, ISAS)
An international joint research group led by Deputy Chief Researcher Toshihiro Yoshimura and Senior Researcher Yoshinori Takano of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Chief Researcher Daisuke Araoka of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and Professor Hiroshi Naraoka of the Graduate School of Science, Kyushu University, together with researchers from the University of Tokyo, Horiba Techno Service, Hokkaido University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and Tokai National University Organization Nagoya University, have conducted an international joint research project on the asteroid Ryugu. Precise chemical analyses of magnesian minerals such as breunnerite and primitive brines in samples from the asteroid Ryugu revealed their composition and content.
Asteroid Ryugu is one of the most primitive bodies that retain the chemical composition of the entire solar system before the birth of the Earth. Although analyses by various research groups have revealed aqueous metamorphism involving minerals, organic matter, and water, the reaction history of the so-called “brine chemical composition and precipitation of ionic components” has remained unknown.
In this study, we isolated and identified small carbonate minerals (breunnerite) from samples from the asteroid Ryugu, extracted the cationic components with solvents, and performed precise chemical composition analysis. As a result, the cation composition of the last water in contact with the minerals in Ryugu was found to be rich in sodium ions (Na+). There are several minerals in Ryuguu that are very rich in magnesium, which elucidated the precipitation order of magnesium removal from the water. Sodium ions may have acted as electrolytes that stabilized the surface charges of minerals and organic materials.
This achievement is an important finding that unravels the chemical evolution of the early solar system and provides primary information on primordial brine material and water-mineral interactions on carbonaceous asteroids.
The results were published in the scientific journal Nature Communications on September 5, 2024 (JST).
09/05/2024[Press Release] Formation history of magnesium carbonates and chemical evolution of primitive brines on asteroid Ryugu はコメントを受け付けていませんNews, UTOPS-News Like
