Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Springer Science and Business Media LLC  

Abstract

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans a Phobos sample return mission (MMX: Martian Moons eXploration). In this study, we review the related works on the past climate of Mars, its evolution, and the present climate and weather to describe the scientific goals and strategies of the MMX mission regarding the evolution of the Martian surface environment. The MMX spacecraft will retrieve and return a sample of Phobos regolith back to Earth in 2029. Mars ejecta are expected to be accumulated on the surface of Phobos without being much shocked. Samples from Phobos probably contain all types of Martian rock from sedimentary to igneous covering all geological eras if ejecta from Mars could be accumulated on the Phobos surface. Therefore, the history of the surface environment of Mars can be restored by analyzing the returned samples. Remote sensing of the Martian atmosphere and monitoring ions escaping to space while the spacecraft is orbiting Mars in the equatorial orbit are also planned. The camera with multi-wavelength filters and the infrared spectrometer onboard the spacecraft can monitor rapid transport processes of water vapor, dust, ice clouds, and other species, which could not be traced by the previous satellites on the sun-synchronous polar orbit. Such time-resolved pictures of the atmospheric phenomena should be an important clue to understand both the processes of water exchange between the surface/underground reservoirs and the atmosphere and the drivers of efficient material transport to the upper atmosphere. The mass spectrometer with unprecedented mass resolution can observe ions escaping to space and monitor the atmospheric escape which has made the past Mars to evolve towards the cold and dry surface environment we know today. Together with the above two instruments, it can potentially reveal what kinds of atmospheric events can transport tracers (e.g., H₂O) upward and enhance the atmospheric escape.

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DOI： 10.1186/s40623-021-01417-0

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Springer Science and Business Media LLC  

Abstract

Japanese Hayabusa2 spacecraft has successfully carried out an impact experiment using a small carry-on impactor (SCI) on an asteroid (162173) Ryugu. We examine the size distribution of particles inside and outside an artificial impact crater (the SCI crater) based on the images taken by the optical navigation camera onboard the Hayabusa2 spacecraft. The circumferential variation in particle size distribution inside the SCI crater is recognized and we interpret that major circumferential variation is caused by the large boulders inside the SCI crater that existed prior to the impact. The size distribution inside the SCI crater also shows that the subsurface layer beneath the SCI impact site had a large number of particles with a characteristic size of – 9 cm, which is consistent with the previous evaluations. On the other hand, the size distribution outside the SCI crater exhibits the radial variation, implying that the deposition of ejecta from the SCI crater is involved. The slope of the size distribution outside the crater at small sizes differs from the slope of the size distribution on the surface of Ryugu by approximately 1 or slightly less. This is consistent with the claim that some particles are buried in fine particles of the subsurface origin included in ejecta from the SCI crater. Thus, the particle size distributions inside and outside the SCI crater reveal that the subsurface layer beneath the SCI impact site is rich in fine particles with – 9 cm in size while the particles on the surface have a size distribution of a power-law form with shallower slopes at small sizes due to the deposition of fine ejecta from the subsurface layer. Finally, we discuss a process responsible for this difference in particle size distribution between the surface and the subsurface layers. The occurrence of segregation in the gravitational flow of particles on the surface of Ryugu is plausible.

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DOI： 10.1186/s40623-022-01713-3

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：EDP Sciences  

Context. After landing on C-type asteroid Ryugu, MASCOT imaged brightly colored, submillimeter-sized inclusions in a small rock. Hayabusa2 successfully returned a sample of small particles from the surface of Ryugu, but none of these appear to harbor such inclusions. The samples are considered representative of Ryugu.

Aims. To understand the apparent discrepancy between MASCOT observations and Ryugu samples, we assess whether the MASCOT landing site, and the rock by implication, is perhaps atypical for Ryugu.

Methods. We analyzed observations of the MASCOT landing area acquired by three instruments on board Hayabusa2: a camera (ONC), a near-infrared spectrometer (NIRS3), and a thermal infrared imager. We compared the landing area properties thus retrieved with those of the average Ryugu surface.

Results. We selected several areas and landforms in the landing area for analysis: a small crater, a collection of smooth rocks, and the landing site itself. The crater is relatively blue and the rocks are relatively red. The spectral and thermophysical properties of the landing site are very close to those of the average Ryugu surface. The spectral properties of the MASCOT rock are probably close to average, but its thermal inertia may be somewhat higher.

Conclusions. The MASCOT rock can also be considered representative of Ryugu. Some of the submillimeter-sized particles in the returned samples stand out because of their atypical spectral properties. Such particles may be present as inclusions in the MASCOT rock.

DOI： 10.1051/0004-6361/202244059

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

Hayabusa2 took on the challenge of collecting fresh subsurface samples from asteroid (162173) Ryugu during its second touchdown operation. For this ambitious goal, the spacecraft conducted artificial cratering by using a small carry-on impactor (SCI), leading to the exposure of subsurface materials. The key to mission success lies in the target site selection for the SCI and landing operations, which is the focus of this paper. On the one hand, the science goal of collecting subsurface materials required us to land on one of the areas with a large amount of impact ejecta excavated by SCI, where boulder abundance is not necessarily low. On the other hand, spacecraft safety demanded that we avoid landing on hazardous areas with large boulders. These two conditions often conflicted with each other. In order to resolve this dilemma, we developed a scheme to select a target site that secures the chance of retrieving a significant amount of subsurface samples without posing serious safety risks. Although the basic selection scheme was similar to that for the first touchdown, the second landing site selection involved additional analyses of artificial cratering and subsurface sampling. Consequently, the site selection campaign, including various types of spacecraft operations, contributed to the successful retrieval of Ryugu samples, which presumably contain materials excavated from subsurface layers. The present study provides the framework to access internal asteroid materials, pushing the envelope of space exploration.

DOI： 10.1016/j.pss.2022.105519

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE  

Over a broad size range, the shapes of impact fragments from catastrophic disruptions are distributed around the mean axial ratio 2: √2: 1, irrespective of experimental conditions and target materials. Although most blocks on asteroids are likely to be impact fragments, there is not enough quantitative data for reliable statistics on their three-axial lengths and/or ratios because it is difficult to precisely estimate the heights of the blocks. In this study, we evaluate the heights of blocks on asteroid Ryugu by measuring their shadows. The three-axial ratios of ~4100 small blocks with diameters from 5.0 cm to 7.6 m in Ryugu's equatorial region are investigated using eight close-up images of narrower localities taken at altitudes below 500 m, i.e. at <5.4 cm/pixel resolution, obtained immediately before the second touch-down of the Hayabusa2 spacecraft. The purpose of this study is to investigate the block shape distribution, which is important for understanding the geological history of asteroid Ryugu. Specifically, the shape distribution is compared to laboratory impact fragments. Our observations indicate that the shape distributions of blocks smaller than 1 m on Ryugu are consistent with laboratory impact fragment shape distributions, implying that the dominant shape-determining process for blocks on Ryugu was impact fragmentation. Blocks several meters in size in the equatorial region seem to be slightly flatter than the rest, suggesting that some blocks are partly buried in a bed of regolith. In conclusion, the shape distributions of blocks from several-cm to several-m in the equatorial region of asteroid Ryugu suggest that these are mainly fragments originating from the catastrophic disruption of their parent body and/or from a later impact.

DOI： 10.1016/j.icarus.2022.115007

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Elsevier BV  

DOI： 10.1016/j.icarus.2022.114911

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

The Hayabusa2 spacecraft investigated the C-type (carbonaceous) asteroid (162173) Ryugu. The mission performed two landing operations to collect samples of surface and subsurface material, the latter exposed by an artificial impact. We present images of the second touchdown site, finding that ejecta from the impact crater was present at the sample location. Surface pebbles at both landing sites show morphological variations ranging from rugged to smooth, similar to Ryugu’s boulders, and shapes from quasi-spherical to flattened. The samples were returned to Earth on 6 December 2020. We describe the morphology of >5 grams of returned pebbles and sand. Their diverse color, shape, and structure are consistent with the observed materials of Ryugu; we conclude that they are a representative sample of the asteroid.

DOI： 10.1126/science.abj8624

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PubMed

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Springer Science and Business Media LLC  

Abstract

Sodium and, in a lesser way, potassium atomic components of surface-bounded exospheres are among the brightest elements that can be observed from the Earth in our Solar System. Both species have been intensively observed around Mercury, the Moon and the Galilean Moons. During the last decade, new observations have been obtained thanks to space missions carrying remote and in situ instrumentation that provide a completely original view of these species in the exospheres of Mercury and the Moon. They challenged our understanding and modelling of these exospheres and opened new directions of research by suggesting the need to better take into account the relationship between the surface-exosphere and the magnetosphere. In this paper, we first review the large set of observations of Mercury and the Moon Sodium and Potassium exospheres. In the second part, we list what it tells us on the sources and sinks of these exospheres focusing in particular on the role of their magnetospheres of these objects and then discuss, in a third section, how these observations help us to understand and identify the key drivers of these exospheres.

DOI： 10.1007/s11214-022-00871-w

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Publishing type：Part of collection (book)   Publisher：Elsevier  

DOI： 10.1016/b978-0-323-99731-7.00016-7

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Publishing type：Part of collection (book)   Publisher：Elsevier  

DOI： 10.1016/b978-0-323-99731-7.00019-2

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：SPRINGER  

Martian moons exploration, MMX, is the new sample return mission planned by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) targeting the two Martian moons with the scheduled launch in 2024 and return to the Earth in 2029. The major scientific objectives of this mission are to determine the origin of Phobos and Deimos, to elucidate the early Solar System evolution in terms of volatile delivery across the snow line to the terrestrial planets having habitable surface environments, and to explore the evolutionary processes of both moons and Mars surface environment. To achieve these objectives, during a stay in circum-Martian space over about 3 years MMX will collect samples from Phobos along with close-up observations of this inner moon and carry out multiple flybys of Deimos to make comparative observations of this outer moon. Simultaneously, successive observations of the Martian atmosphere will also be made by utilizing the advantage of quasi-equatorial spacecraft orbits along the moons' orbits.

DOI： 10.1186/s40623-021-01545-7

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Elsevier BV  

The Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft is equipped with two cameras, i.e., the TElescopic Nadir imager for GeOmOrphology (TENGOO) and the Optical Radiometer composed Of CHromatic Imagers (OROCHI), for the scientific observation of the Martian moon Phobos. OROCHI is a wide-angle multiband camera system comprising seven cameras with different bandpass filters and one monochromatic camera in the visible and near-infrared range. Thus, OROCHI can simultaneously obtain multiband images. Previous space observations have revealed that the reflection spectra of Phobos exhibit regional differences, including a red unit and a blue unit with weak redness. Moreover, Phobos shows an absorption band near 650 nm, attributed to the red unit of Phobos. Global observations using OROCHI require the determination of such regional variations with high precision; therefore, we must reduce noise in the optical system design. In this study, to meet this requirement, we focus on stray light reduction. Stray light is a source of noise generated by reflections at surfaces of optical components (e.g., sensors, filters, lenses, and lens barrels). We design simulation models of the OROCHI optical system, measure the reflectance of its charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensor, and conduct stray light analysis via ray tracing. We estimate the ratio of the stray light intensity to the target signal intensity by deriving both the reflected (constituting stray light) and unreflected rays. We show that placing the filter away from the sensor and reducing the reflectances of the filter and lenses effectively reduce stray light. Such approaches are incorporated into the preliminary design of OROCHI. (C) 2021 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier B.V.

DOI： 10.1016/j.asr.2021.11.011

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Springer Science and Business Media LLC  

Abstract

In this study, we determined the alignment of the laser altimeter aboard Hayabusa2 with respect to the spacecraft using in-flight data. Since the laser altimeter data were used to estimate the trajectory of the Hayabusa2 spacecraft, the pointing direction of the altimeter needed to be accurately determined. The boresight direction of the receiving telescope was estimated by comparing elevations of the laser altimeter data and camera images, and was confirmed by identifying prominent terrains of other datasets. The estimated boresight direction obtained by the laser link experiment in the winter of 2015, during the Earth’s gravity assist operation period, differed from the direction estimated in this study, which fell on another part of the candidate direction; this was not selected in a previous study. Assuming that the uncertainty of alignment determination of the laser altimeter boresight was 4.6 pixels in the camera image, the trajectory error of the spacecraft in the cross- and/or along-track directions was determined to be 0.4, 2.1, or 8.6 m for altitudes of 1, 5, or 20 km, respectively.

DOI： 10.1186/s40623-020-01342-8

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Springer Science and Business Media LLC  

Abstract

The MMX infrared spectrometer (MIRS) is an imaging spectrometer onboard MMX JAXA mission. MMX (Martian Moon eXploration) is scheduled to be launched in 2024 with sample return to Earth in 2029. MIRS is built at LESIA-Paris Observatory in collaboration with four other French laboratories, collaboration and financial support of CNES and close collaboration with JAXA and MELCO. The instrument is designed to fully accomplish MMX’s scientific and measurement objectives. MIRS will remotely provide near-infrared spectral maps of Phobos and Deimos containing compositional diagnostic spectral features that will be used to analyze the surface composition and to support the sampling site selection. MIRS will also study Mars atmosphere, in particular spatial and temporal changes such as clouds, dust and water vapor.

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DOI： 10.1186/s40623-021-01423-2

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Springer Science and Business Media LLC  

Abstract

The Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission will study the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos, Mars, and their environments. The mission scenario includes both landing on the surface of Phobos to collect samples and deploying a small rover for in situ observations. Engineering safeties and scientific planning for these operations require appropriate evaluations of the surface environment of Phobos. Thus, the mission team organized the Landing Operation Working Team (LOWT) and Surface Science and Geology Sub-Science Team (SSG-SST), whose view of the Phobos environment is summarized in this paper. While orbital and large-scale characteristics of Phobos are relatively well known, characteristics of the surface regolith, including the particle size-distributions, the packing density, and the mechanical properties, are difficult to constrain. Therefore, we developed several types of simulated soil materials (simulant), such as UTPS-TB (University of Tokyo Phobos Simulant, Tagish Lake based), UTPS-IB (Impact-hypothesis based), and UTPS-S (Simpler version) for engineering and scientific evaluation experiments.

DOI： 10.1186/s40623-021-01406-3

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Springer Science and Business Media LLC  

Abstract

The JAXA’s Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission is planned to reveal the origin of Phobos and Deimos. It will remotely observe both moons and return a sample from Phobos. The nominal instruments include the TElescopic Nadir imager for GeOmOrphology (TENGOO) and Optical RadiOmeter composed of CHromatic Imagers (OROCHI). The scientific objective of TENGOO is to obtain the geomorphological features of Phobos and Deimos. The spatial resolution of TENGOO is 0.3 m at an altitude of 25 km in the quasi-satellite orbit. The scientific objective of OROCHI is to obtain material distribution using spectral mapping. OROCHI possesses seven wide-angle bandpass imagers without a filter wheel and one monochromatic imager dedicated to the observation during the landing phase. Using these two instruments, we plan to select landing sites and obtain information that supports the analysis of return samples.

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DOI： 10.1186/s40623-021-01462-9

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Springer Science and Business Media LLC  

Abstract

The science operations of the spacecraft and remote sensing instruments for the Martian Moon eXploration (MMX) mission are discussed by the mission operation working team. In this paper, we describe the Phobos observations during the first 1.5 years of the spacecraft’s stay around Mars, and the Deimos observations before leaving the Martian system. In the Phobos observation, the spacecraft will be placed in low-altitude quasi-satellite orbits on the equatorial plane of Phobos and will make high-resolution topographic and spectroscopic observations of the Phobos surface from five different altitudes orbits. The spacecraft will also attempt to observe polar regions of Phobos from a three-dimensional quasi-satellite orbit moving out of the equatorial plane of Phobos. From these observations, we will constrain the origin of Phobos and Deimos and select places for landing site candidates for sample collection. For the Deimos observations, the spacecraft will be injected into two resonant orbits and will perform many flybys to observe the surface of Deimos over as large an area as possible.

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DOI： 10.1186/s40623-021-01546-6

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Springer Science and Business Media LLC  

Abstract

Mineralogy is the key to understanding the origin of Phobos and its position in the evolution of the Solar System. In situ Raman spectroscopy on Phobos is an important tool to achieve the scientific objectives of the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission, and maximize the scientific merit of the sample return by characterizing the mineral composition and heterogeneity of the surface of Phobos. Conducting in situ Raman spectroscopy in the harsh environment of Phobos requires a very sensitive, compact, lightweight, and robust instrument that can be carried by the compact MMX rover. In this context, the Raman spectrometer for MMX (i.e., RAX) is currently under development via international collaboration between teams from Japan, Germany, and Spain. To demonstrate the capability of a compact Raman system such as RAX, we built an instrument that reproduces the optical performance of the flight model using commercial off-the-shelf parts. Using this performance model, we measured mineral samples relevant to Phobos and Mars, such as anhydrous silicates, carbonates, and hydrous minerals. Our measurements indicate that such minerals can be accurately identified using a RAX-like Raman spectrometer. We demonstrated a spectral resolution of approximately 10 cm⁻¹, high enough to resolve the strongest olivine Raman bands at ~ 820 and ~ 850 cm⁻¹, with highly sensitive Raman peak measurements (e.g., signal-to-noise ratios up to 100). These results strongly suggest that the RAX instrument will be capable of determining the minerals expected on the surface of Phobos, adding valuable information to address the question of the moon’s origin, heterogeneity, and circum-Mars material transport.

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DOI： 10.1186/s40623-021-01496-z

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Springer Science and Business Media LLC  

<title>Abstract</title>Ryugu is a carbonaceous rubble-pile asteroid visited by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft. Small rubble pile asteroids record the thermal evolution of their much larger parent bodies. However, recent space weathering and/or solar heating create ambiguities between the uppermost layer observable by remote-sensing and the pristine material from the parent body. Hayabusa2 remote-sensing observations find that on the asteroid (162173) Ryugu both north and south pole regions preserve the material least processed by space weathering, which is spectrally blue carbonaceous chondritic material with a 0–3% deep 0.7-µm band absorption, indicative of Fe-bearing phyllosilicates. Here we report that spectrally blue Ryugu’s parent body experienced intensive aqueous alteration and subsequent thermal metamorphism at 570–670 K (300–400 °C), suggesting that Ryugu’s parent body was heated by radioactive decay of short-lived radionuclides possibly because of its early formation 2–2.5 Ma. The samples being brought to Earth by Hayabusa2 will give us our first insights into this epoch in solar system history.

DOI： 10.1038/s41467-021-26071-8

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Other Link： https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26071-8

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Elsevier BV  

One of the major challenges in the Hayabusa2 sample-return mission was the second touchdown on the asteroid Ryugu, which was designed to collect subsurface materials near the artificial crater formed by a small carry-on impactor. Due to engineering and scientific requirements, a narrow area with a radius as small as 3.5 m was selected as the target landing site. To achieve pinpoint touchdown at the selected site, an artificial landmark called a target marker (TM) was used for optical navigation. The key to a successful touchdown was precise deployment of the TM in the microgravity environment of the asteroid. This study therefore investigates a viable trajectory for TM deployment, incorporating the uncertainty in the impact and rebound motions of the TM. Following the TM deployment operation, a detailed survey of the landing site around the TM settlement point is performed to assess the terrain conditions. To guarantee the observation quality and spacecraft safety, multi-impulse low-altitude trajectories are introduced in this paper, along with covariance analyses based on the high-fidelity polyhedral gravity model of Ryugu. Subsequently, a pinpoint touchdown trajectory that satisfies various engineering requirements, such as landing accuracy and velocity, is designed, taking advantage of optical TM tracking. The feasibility of the touchdown sequence is further validated by a Monte Carlo dispersion analysis. Consequently, Hayabusa2 successfully touched down within the target site on 11 July 2019. The current research also conducts a post-operation trajectory reconstruction based on the flight data to demonstrate the actual guidance performance in the TM deployment, landing site observations, and pinpoint touchdown. (C) 2021 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier B.V.

DOI： 10.1016/j.asr.2021.07.031

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：American Astronomical Society  

Abstract

On 2019 January 8, the Telescopic Optical Navigation Camera (ONC-T) on board the Hayabusa2 spacecraft observed the Cb-type asteroid 162173 Ryugu under near-opposition illumination and viewing conditions from approximately 20 km in distance. Although opposition observations have never been used for mapping purposes of a planetary body, we found three advantages for mapping under these conditions: (1) images are free of topographic shadows, (2) the reflectance is nearly independent of the orientation of the surface, and (3) spurious color artifacts that may appear near shadowed terrain are avoided. We present normal albedo maps, one for each of the seven filters (0.40–0.95 μm), using an empirical photometric correction. Global coverage of Ryugu is 99.4%. The 0.55 μm band average normal albedo is 4.06% ± 0.10%. Various spectral variations are derived from these maps. Spectral features of regions and boulders are quantified by examining the normal albedo-derived spectral slope and UV index (spectral slope from visible to ultraviolet wavelength) value. In terms of space weathering, three spectral characteristics are observed over the majority of Ryugu: (1) reddening, (2) increases in reflectance at ultraviolet wavelengths compared to visible, and (3) darkening. By contrast, the bright boulders (“type 3”) show a different trend, with wide variations in the 0.95 μm albedo and UV index. Finally, principal component analysis (PCA) comparisons with other asteroids strongly suggest that the main components of Ryugu belong to the B-Cb-type populations. The PCA feature of the fresh material on Ryugu is close to the Eulalia family.

DOI： 10.3847/psj/ac14ba

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Elsevier BV  

Recent asteroid missions have revealed that many sub-kilometer asteroids are rubble piles. Large parts of their surfaces are covered with boulders larger than tens of centimeters. An evaluation of the abundance and size distribution of boulders provides clues to understand surface processes on boulder-covered asteroids. Here we report a new method that automatically measures the abundance of small boulders (sub-pixel to a few pixels), whose boundaries cannot be recognized with visual inspection, by quantifying the surface radiance variation that occurs during the spinning of the asteroid. After validating our approach with previous boulder counting data, we apply this method to images of the asteroids Ryugu and Itokawa, which were visited by JAXA's Hayabusa and Hayabusa2, and obtain a global distribution of the boulders larger than 0.75–3 ​m, which corresponds to 1.5–6 pixels. We find that the boulder number density of this size range is smaller (1) on the western bulge than on the eastern hemisphere and (2) on the equatorial ridge than on the higher latitudes, both of which exceed the number density of boulders ​> ​5 ​m by an order of magnitude. The boulder size distribution at 1.25–20 ​m shows that the boulders smaller than 1 ​m are more abundant at the equator than at mid-latitudes, while those larger than 1 ​m in diameter are more abundant at mid-latitudes than at the equator. This contrast suggests size-dependent migration of boulders in the latitudinal direction. We also find that the typical boulder size (the size reaching the cumulative areal coverage of 50%) is 1.9 ​m at the equatorial region (10°S-10°N) while it is 2.6 ​m at mid-latitudes (40°S-50°S, 40°N-50°N). The typical boulder size is also smaller in the western bulge (2.0–2.2 ​m). We construct global maps of the power-law index of the size frequency distribution of boulders and find minor variations over the entire surface of Ryugu (−2.53 ​± ​0.03) for boulders larger than 1.25 ​m. This small variation suggests homogeneous size sorting processes on Ryugu. Surface roughness does not show a significant correlation with the v-band albedo but shows a high anti-correlation (R ​= ​−0.73) with the current geological slope on the eastern hemisphere. Our method is useful enhancement of smooth area detection and boulder distribution characterization that will be applicable to other planetary explorations in the future, including those of Phobos and other asteroids.

DOI： 10.1016/j.pss.2021.105249

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE  

The resurfacing process on Ryugu accompanying the artificial impact crater formation by Hayabusa2's Small Carry-on Impactor (SCI) was studied by comparing pre- and post-impact images of this region captured by an optical navigation camera. Three different aspects of the resurfacing process were examined: the crater rim profiles, the motion of boulders and the appearance of new boulders, and the motion vectors of Ryugu's surface around the SCI crater. The averaged crater rim height, h, was derived as follows: h = h(r) exp [-(r/R-rim 1)/lambda(rim)], where R-rim is the SCI crater rim radius of 8.8 m, the fitted parameter, h(r), is 0.475 m, and the lambda(rim) is 0.245. The ejecta blanket thickness of the SCI crater was thinner than that estimated from both the observation of natural craters and the crater formation theory. However, this discrepancy of the ejecta blanket thickness was resolved by taking into account the new boulders appearing in the post-impact images in the volume. The motion of the discovered boulders could be classified by its mechanisms as follows: a dragging motion created by excavation flow during the crater formation, a pushing motion created by falling-back ejecta, a dragging motion created by the slight motion of the Okamoto boulder, and a motion caused by seismic shaking induced by the SCI impact itself. The seismic shaking caused boulders to move farther than 3 cm from the original site in most of the region within 15 m distance from the SCI crater center, where the maximum acceleration of the impact induced seismic waves 7 times larger than the surface gravity of Ryugu based on the laboratory experiments (Matsue et al. [2020] Icarus, 338, 113520), and the evidence of the seismic shaking for boulders with a movement of >3 cm was detected in about 10% of the boulders in the region between 15 m and 30 m from the crater center, which region was inferred to experience acceleration larger than the Ryugu's surface gravity based on previous laboratory experiments (Matsue et al. [2020] Icarus, 338, 113520).

DOI： 10.1016/j.icarus.2021.114530

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Elsevier BV  

Hayabusa2 is the Japanese Asteroid Return Mission and targeted the carbonaceous asteroid Ryugu, conducted by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The goal of this mission was to conduct proximity operations including remote sensing observations, material sampling, and a Small Carry-On Impact experiment, as well as sample analyses. As of September 2020, the spacecraft is on the way back to Earth with samples from Ryugu with no critical issues after the successful departure in November 2019. Here, we propose an extended mission in which the spacecraft will rendezvous with a small asteroid with ~30 m - ~40 m in diameter that is rotating at a spin period of ~10 min after an additional ~10-year cruise phase. We introduce that two scenarios are suitable for the extended mission. In the first scenario, the spacecraft will perform swing-by maneuvers at Venus once and Earth twice to arrive at asteroid 2001 AV43. In the second scenario, it will perform swing-by maneuvers at Earth twice to reach asteroid 1998 KY26. In both scenarios, the mission will continue until the early 2030s. JAXA recently released the decision that the spacecraft will rendezvous with 1998 KY26. This paper focuses on our scientific assessments of the two scenarios but leaves the decision process to go to 1998 KY26 for future reports. Rendezvous operations will be planned to detail the physical properties and surrounding environments of the target, one of the smallest elements of small planetary bodies. By achieving the planned operations, the mission will provide critical hints on the violent histories of collisions and accumulations of small bodies in the solar system. Furthermore, the established scientific knowledge and techniques will advance key technologies for planetary defense.

DOI： 10.1016/j.asr.2021.03.030

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

Planetesimals—the initial stage of the planetary formation process—are considered to be initially very porous aggregates of dusts1,2, and subsequent thermal and compaction processes reduce their porosity3. The Hayabusa2 spacecraft found that boulders on the surface of asteroid (162173) Ryugu have an average porosity of 30–50% (refs. 4–6), higher than meteorites but lower than cometary nuclei7, which are considered to be remnants of the original planetesimals8. Here, using high-resolution thermal and optical imaging of Ryugu’s surface, we discovered, on the floor of fresh small craters (<20 m in diameter), boulders with reflectance (~0.015) lower than the Ryugu average6 and porosity >70%, which is as high as in cometary bodies. The artificial crater formed by Hayabusa2’s impact experiment9 is similar to these craters in size but does not have such high-porosity boulders. Thus, we argue that the observed high porosity is intrinsic and not created by subsequent impact comminution and/or cracking. We propose that these boulders are the least processed material on Ryugu and represent remnants of porous planetesimals that did not undergo a high degree of heating and compaction3. Our multi-instrumental analysis suggests that fragments of the highly porous boulders are mixed within the surface regolith globally, implying that they might be captured within collected samples by touch-down operations10,11.

DOI： 10.1038/s41550-021-01371-7

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japanese Society for Planetary Sciences  

DOI： 10.14909/yuseijin.30.2_64

CiNii Article

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

The article “Orbit insertion strategy of Hayabusa2’s rover with large release uncertainty around the asteroid Ryugu” written by Yusuke Oki, Kent Yoshikawa, Hiroshi Takeuchi et al., was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal (currently SpringerLink) on 05 November 2020 without open access. After publication in Volume 4, Issue 4, page 309–329, the author(s) decided to opt for Open Choice and to make the article an open access publication. Therefore, the copyright of the article has been changed to © The Author(s) 2020 and the article is forthwith distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

DOI： 10.1007/s42064-021-0100-6

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Elsevier BV  

DOI： 10.1016/j.icarus.2021.114591

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

© 2021 Elsevier Inc. Global multiband images of the C-type asteroid (162173) Ryugu were obtained by the optical navigation camera telescope (ONC-T) onboard Hayabusa2. The 0.7-μm absorption depth of the surface reflectance spectrum, which indicates the presence of hydrous minerals, was not clearly seen on Ryugu using flat field correction data obtained in the preflight measurement. The flat field correction data were obtained in the preflight calibration test only at room temperatures (24‐–28 °C), whereas most observations around Ryugu were performed at a charge-coupled device (CCD) temperature of approximately ‐−30 °C. To obtain higher accuracy measurements, we used a new flat field correction method using the Ryugu surface reflection data. We confirmed that the flat-field patterns are different in high and low temperature conditions. The 0.7-μm absorption map generated by the new method shows that the 0.7-μm absorption near the equator (5°N–5°S) is stronger than that from 30°N to 30°S. We found that the excess of the absorption depth at low latitudes was 0.072%, corresponding to 2.7σ. The spectral analysis also shows that the Ryugu surface at low latitudes is bluer than that at high latitudes and bluer materials tend to show stronger 0.7-μm absorption than redder materials, suggesting that this region has been subjected to less space weathering and less solar heating.

DOI： 10.1016/j.icarus.2021.114348

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

© 2021 Elsevier Inc. Accurate measurements of the surface brightness and its spectrophotometric properties are essential for obtaining reliable observations of the physical and material properties of planetary bodies. To measure the surface brightness of Ryugu accurately, we calibrated the optical navigation cameras (ONCs) of Hayabusa2 using both standard stars and Ryugu itself during the rendezvous phase including two touchdown operations for sampling. These calibration results showed that the nadir-viewing telescopic camera (ONC-T) and nadir-viewing wide-angle camera (ONC-W1) experienced substantial variation in sensitivity. In particular, ONC-W1 showed significant sensitivity degradation (~60%) after the first touchdown operation. We estimated the degradations to be caused by front lens contamination by fine-grain materials lifted from the Ryugu surface due to thruster gas for ascent back maneuver and sampler projectile impact upon touchdown. While ONC-T is located very close to W1 on the spacecraft, its degradation in sensitivity was only ~15% over the entire rendezvous phase. If in fact dust is really the main cause for the degradation, this lighter damage likely resulted from dust protection by the long hood attached to ONC-T. However, because large variations in the absolute sensitivity occurred after the touchdown events, which should be due to dust effect, uncertainty for the absolute sensitivity was rather large (3–4%). On the other hand, the change in relative spectral responsivity (i.e., 0.55-μm-band normalized responsivity) of ONC-T was small (1%). The variation in relative responsivity during the proximity phase has been well calibrated to have only a small uncertainty (< 1%). Furthermore, the degradation (i.e., increase) in the full width at half maximum of the point spread function of ONC-T and W1 was almost negligible, although the blurring effect due to dust scattering was confirmed in W1. These optical degradations due to the touchdown events were carefully monitored as a function of time along with other time-related deteriorations, such as the dark current level and hot pixels. We also conducted a new calibration of the flat-field change as a function of the detector temperature by observing the onboard flat-field lamp and validating with Ryugu's disk images. The results of these calibrations showed that ONC-T and W1 maintained their scientific performance by updating the calibration parameters.

DOI： 10.1016/j.icarus.2021.114353

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Elsevier BV  

DOI： 10.1016/j.icarus.2021.114529

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Publisher：Wiley  

DOI： 10.1002/essoar.10506689.2

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：EDP Sciences  

Context. The JAXA asteroid sample return mission Hayabusa2 reached its target (162173) Ryugu in June 2018 and released the European (CNES-DLR) lander MASCOT in October 2018. MASCOT successfully landed on the surface, and the Hayabusa2 Optical Navigation Camera system has been able to image parts of the MASCOT trajectory.

Aims. This work builds on our previous study of interactions between a landing package and a granular material in the context of MASCOT on Ryugu. The purpose is to expand our knowledge on this topic and to help constrain physical properties of surfaces by considering the actual trajectory of MASCOT and observations of Ryugu from Hayabusa2.

Methods. We ran a new campaign of numerical simulations using the N-body code pkdgrav with the soft-sphere discrete element method by expanding the parameter space to characterize the actual landing scenario of MASCOT on Ryugu. The surface was modeled as a granular medium, but we also considered a large boulder in the bed at various depths and a rigid wall representing a cliff. MASCOT was faithfully modeled as the actual lander, and we considered different impact angles, speeds, and surface slopes. We were particularly interested in the outgoing-to-incoming speed ratio of MASCOT during the landing process.

Results. We found that a boulder in the bed generally increases both the stochasticity of the outcomes and the speed ratio, with larger increases when the boulder sits closer to the surface. We also found that the surface slope does not affect our previous results and that the impact speed does not affect the speed ratio for moderate-friction granular material. Finally, we found that a speed ratio as low as 0.3, as estimated in the actual scenario, can occur with a solid-rock surface, not only with a soft surface, because the geometry of the lander is nonspherical. This means that we must infer the physical properties of the surface from outcomes such as the speed ratio with caution: it depends on the lander geometry.

DOI： 10.1051/0004-6361/201936128

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Elsevier BV  

DOI： 10.1016/j.icarus.2020.114220

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

© 2020 Elsevier Inc. C-type rubble pile asteroid (162173) Ryugu was observed and characterized up close for a year and a half by the instruments on-board the Japanese Aerospace eXploration Agency (JAXA) Hayabusa2 spacecraft. The asteroid exhibits relatively homogeneous spectral characteristics at near-infrared wavelengths (~1.8–3.2 μm), including a very low reflectance factor, a slight positive (“red”) slope towards longer wavelengths, and a narrow absorption feature centered at 2.72 μm that is attributed to the presence of OH− in phyllosilicate minerals. Numerous craters have been identified at the surface that provide good candidates for identifying and studying younger and/or more recently exposed near-surface material to further assess potential spectral/compositional heterogeneities. We present here the results of a spectral survey of all previously identified and referenced craters (Hirata et al. 2020) based on reflectance data acquired by the NIRS3 spectrometer, with an emphasis on the spectral characteristics between different craters as well as with their surrounding terrain. At a global scale, the spectral properties inside and outside of craters are found to be very similar, indicating that subsurface material is either compositionally similar to material at the surface that has a longer exposure age or that material at Ryugu's optical surface is spectrally altered over relatively short timescales by external factors such as space weathering. Although, the imaging data from ONC camera suites show more morphological and color diversity in craters at a smaller scale than the resolution provided by the NIRS3 instrument, which could indicate a wider compositional diversity on Ryugu than that observed in the near-infrared and discussed in this paper. The 2.72 μm band depth exhibit a slight anti-correlation with the reflectance factor selected at 2 μm, which could indicate different surface properties (e.g., grain size and/or porosity) or different alteration processes (e.g., space weathering, shock metamorphism and/or solar heating). Four different spectral classes were identified based on their reflectance factor at 2 μm and 2.72 μm absorption strength. The most commonly spectral behavior associated with crater floors, is defined by a slightly lower reflectance at 2 μm and deeper band depth. These spectral characteristics are similar to those of subsurface material excavated by the Hayabusa2 small carry-on impactor (SCI) experiment, suggesting these spectral characteristics may represent materials with a younger surface exposure age. Alternatively, these materials may have experienced significant solar heating and desiccation to form finer grains that subsequently migrated towards and preferentially accumulated in areas of low geopotential, such as craters floors. It is believed that the Hayabusa2 mission successfully collected typical surface material as well as darker material excavated by the SCI experiment, and detailed analyses of those samples upon their return will allow for further testing of these formation and alteration hypotheses.

DOI： 10.1016/j.icarus.2020.114253

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

© 2020 Elsevier Inc. The near-Earth asteroid 162173 Ryugu, the target of the Hayabusa2 mission, is noted to be a spinning top-shaped rubble-pile. Craters are among the most prominent surface features on Ryugu. Their shapes, particularly their depth-to-diameter ratio (d/D), can provide an important proxy for probing both the internal structure and surface processes of planetary bodies. Here, we report d/D of every impact crater on Ryugu using a shape model derived from stereo-photoclinometry. We found that the average, standard deviation, and observed range of d/D for the entire set of craters are 0.09, 0.02, and 0.03–0.15, respectively. Except for possible pit craters, the maximum d/D of large craters on Ryugu (D > 50 m) is close to 0.13, which is comparable with those of fresh simple craters on rocky asteroids, such as Gaspra and Ida. Conversely, the d/D of small craters (D < 50 m) increases with the crater diameter. This behavior implies that a smaller crater on Ryugu is formed as a shallower crater. As on Itokawa, the surface environment on Ryugu likely inhibits craters becoming deep. This especially affects smaller craters, as their normal small depth decreases in the Ryugu environment and they become still more shallow. As a result, small craters rapidly degrade beyond the point where they can be identified as candidate craters. This is likely responsible for the apparent lack of small craters. The d/D has no reliable relationship with the types of crater classification in Hirata et al. (2020). Examination of latitudinal and longitudinal variation in d/D of craters on Ryugu revealed no statistically significant trends.

DOI： 10.1016/j.icarus.2020.114016

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：SPIE-INT SOC OPTICAL ENGINEERING  

Many Earth-sized planets have been discovered and some of them are potentially in the habitable zone. In addition, several Earth-sized planets have been detected around low temperature stars near our solar system. However, it is difficult to characterize them as Earth-like or Venus-like, even though they are relatively very close to our solar system. We performed a conceptual design of an Ultraviolet Spectrograph for Exoplanet (UVSPEX) for World Space Observatory Ultraviolet (WSO-UV), which is 1.7-m UV space telescope being prepared by Russia. The spectral range is to exceed wavelengths from 115 nm to 135 nm to detect at least H Lyman alpha 121.6nm to O I 130 nm. The throughput is >4%. UVSPEX is planned to be a part of a Field Camera Unit (FCU). This additional instrument would enable us to observe similar to 20 Earth-like exoplanets and detect an oxygen exosphere if some of them have an Earth-like atmosphere.

DOI： 10.1117/12.2576260

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION  

Rubble pile asteroids such as (162173) Ryugu have large bulk porosities, which are believed to result from void spaces in between the constituent boulders (macroporosity) as well as void spaces within the boulders themselves (microporosity). In general, both macroporosity and microporosity are estimated based on comparisons between the asteroid bulk density and both the bulk and grain density of meteorite analogs, and relatively large macroporosities are usually obtained. Here we use semiempirical models for the macroporosity of multicomponent mixtures to determine Ryugu's macroporosity based on the observed size-frequency distribution (SFD) of boulders on the surface. We find that Ryugu's macroporosity can be significantly smaller than usually assumed, as the observed SFD allows for an efficient packing of boulders, resulting in a macroporosity of 16% +/- 3%. Therefore, we confirm that Ryugu's high bulk porosity is a direct consequence of a very large boulder microporosity. Furthermore, using estimates of boulder microporosity of around 50% as derived from in situ measurements, the average grain density in boulders is 2,848 +/- 152 kg m(-3), similar to values obtained for CM and the Tagish lake meteorites. Ryugu's bulk porosity corresponding to the above values is 58%. Thus, the macroporosity of rubble pile asteroids may have been systematically overestimated in the past.

DOI： 10.1029/2020JE006519

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

This paper describes the orbit design of the deployable payload Rover 2 of MINERVA-II, installed on the Hayabusa2 spacecraft. Because Rover 2 did not have surface exploration capabilities, the operation team decided to experiment with a new strategy for its deployment to the surface. The rover was ejected at a high altitude and made a semi-hard landing on the surface of the asteroid Ryugu after several orbits. Based on the orbital analysis around Ryugu, the expected collision speed was tolerable for the rover to function post-impact. Because the rover could not control its position, its motion was entirely governed by the initial conditions. Thus, the largest challenge was to insert the rover into a stable orbit (despite its large release uncertainty), and avoid its escape from Ryugu due to an environment strongly perturbed by solar radiation pressure and gravitational irregularities. This study investigates the solution space of the orbit around Ryugu and evaluates the orbit’s robustness by utilizing Monte Carlo simulations to determine the orbit insertion policy. Upon analyzing the flight data of the rover operation, we verified that the rover orbited Ryugu for more than one period and established the possibility of a novel method for estimating the gravity of an asteroid.

DOI： 10.1007/s42064-020-0080-y

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Springer Science and Business Media LLC  

DOI： 10.1007/s42064-020-0084-7

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Other Link： http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42064-020-0084-7/fulltext.html

Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Oxford University Press (OUP)  

<title>Abstract</title>
Alteration processes on asteroid and comet surfaces, such as thermal fracturing, (micrometeorite) impacts or volatile outgassing, are complex mechanisms that form diverse surface morphologies and roughness on various scales. These mechanisms and their interaction may differ on the surfaces of different bodies. Asteroid Ryugu and comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, both, have been visited by landers which imaged the surfaces in high spatial resolution. We investigate the surface morphology and roughness of Ryugu and 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko based on high resolution in situ images of 0.2 mm and 0.8 mm pixel resolution over an approximately 25 cm and 80 cm wide scene, respectively. To maintain comparability and reproducibility, we introduce a method to extract surface roughness descriptors (fractal dimension, Hurst exponent, joint roughness coefficient, root mean square slope, hemispherical crater density, small scale roughness parameter and Hapke mean slope angle) from in situ planetary images illuminated by LEDs. We validate our method and choose adequate parameters for an analysis of the roughness of the surfaces. We also derive the roughness descriptors from 3-dimensional shape models of Ryugu and orbiter camera images and show that the higher spatially resolved images results in a higher roughness. We find that 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is up to 6% rougher than Ryugu depending on the descriptor used and attribute this difference to the different intrinsic properties of the materials imaged and the erosive processes altering them. On 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko sublimation appears to be the main cause for roughness, while on Ryugu micrometeoroid bombardment as well as thermal fatigue and solar weathering may play a significant role in shaping the surface.

DOI： 10.1093/mnras/staa3314

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Publisher：Copernicus GmbH  

&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;JAXA&amp;amp;#8217;s Hayabusa2 is a sample-return mission was launched on Dec. 3, 2014 for bringing back first samples from a C-complex asteroid [1,2]. It arrived at asteroid Ryugu on June 27, 2018 and left for Earth on Nov. 13, 2019 after conducting global remote-sensing observations, two touchdown sampling operations, rover deployments, and an artificial impact experiment. We review our science results and update the mission status of Hayabusa2 in this presentation.&amp;amp;#160;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;
&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;The global observations revealed that Ryugu has a top-shaped body with very low density (1.19&amp;amp;#177;0.02 g/cc) [3], spatially uniform Cb-type spectra without strong Fe-rich serpentine absorption at 0.7-um [4], and a weak but significant OH absorption at 2.7 um [5]. Based on these observations, we proposed that Ryugu materials may have experienced aqueous alteration and subsequent thermal metamorphism due to radiogenic heating [4]. However, other scenarios, such as impact-induced thermal metamorphism and extremely primitive carbonaceous materials before extensive alteration, were also considered because there were many new properties of Ryugu whose origins are unclear. Also, numerical calculations show that impact heating can raise the temperatures high enough to dehydrate serpentine at typical collision speed in the asteroid main belt [6]. &amp;amp;#160;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;
&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Further analysis using high-resolution data obtained at low-altitude descents for both rehearsal and actual touchdown operations as well as the artificial impact experiment by small carryon impactor (SCI) and landers observations the Ryugu surface on allowed us to find out what caused the properties of Ryugu. For example, subtle but distinct latitudinal variation of spectral slope in optical wavelengths found in the initial observations [4] turned out be caused by solar heating or space weathering during orbital excursion toward the Sun and subsequent erosion of the equatorial ridge owing to slowdown in Ryugu&amp;amp;#8217;s spin rate [7]. The SCI impact created a very large (~17 m in crest diameter) crater consistent with gravity-controlled scaling showing that Ryugu surface has very low intra-boulder cohesion and the Ryugu surface is very young and well mixed [8].&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;
&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Furthermore, the MASCOT lander also showed that typical boulders on Ryugu is not covered with a layer of fine regolith [9] and yet possess very low thermal inertia (282+93/-35 MKS) consistent with highly porous structure [10]. This value is consistent with the global values or Ryugu [4, 11], suggesting that the vast majority of boulders on Ryugu are very porous. However, thermal infrared imager (TIR) also found that Ryugu has a number of &amp;amp;#8220;dense boulders&amp;amp;#8221; with high thermal inertia (&amp;gt;600 MKS) consistent with typical carbonaceous chondrites, showing that Ryugu&amp;amp;#8217;s parent body must have had a large enough gravity and pressure to compress the constituent materials [11]. This observation supports that Ryugu originated from a large parent body, such as proto-Polana and proto-Eulalia, which are estimated to be ~100 km in diameter.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;
&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Some of the dense boulders were also covered by multi-band images of optical navigation camera (ONC-T) and turned out to have C-type spectra with albedos much higher than the Ryugu average [12]. These spectra and albedos are similar to carbonaceous chondrites heated at low temperatures. Although the total mass of these high-albedo boulders on Ryugu is estimated to be very small (&amp;lt; 1%), the spectral and albedo varieties are much greater than the bulk Ryugu surface and approximately follow the dehydration track of carbonaceous chondrites [12]. These spectral match supports that Ryugu materials experienced aqueous alteration and subsequent thermal metamorphism. The dominance of a high-temperature component and scarcity of lower temperature components are consistent with radiogenic heating in a relatively large parent body because large bodies would have only thin low-temperature thermal skin and large volume of high-temperature interior.&amp;amp;#160;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;
&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;If radiogenic heating is really responsible for Ryugu&amp;amp;#8217;s moderate dehydration, this may place a very important constraint on the timing of the formation of Ryugu&amp;amp;#8217;s parent body. Because the radiogenic heat source for most meteorite parent bodies are likely extinct species, such as 26Al, the peak temperature is chiefly controlled by the timing of accretion [13]. Thus, high metamorphism temperatures (several hundred degrees in Celsius) of Ryugu&amp;amp;#8217;s bulk materials inferred from spectral comparison with laboratory heated CM and CI meteorites [4, 12] require Ryugu&amp;amp;#8217;s parent body formed early in the Solar System. Because Ryugu&amp;amp;#8217;s parent body contained substantial amount of water at the time of formation, it must have been formed outside the snowline. Thus, the birth place of Ryugu&amp;amp;#8217;s parent body would be a high-accretion-rate location outside the snowline.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;
&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Recent high-precision measurements of stable isotopes of meteorites have found that there is a major dichotomy between carbonaceous chondrites (CCs) and some iron meteorites, which formed outside Jupiter&amp;amp;#8217;s orbit, and non-carbonaceous meteorites (NCs), which formed inside Jupiter&amp;amp;#8217;s orbit [e.g., 14]. If Ryugu belongs to CCs, then Ryugu materials could be form near Jupiter, where accretion could occur early. Thus, measurements of stable isotopes of elements, such as Cr, Ti and Mo, of Ryugu samples to be returned to Earth by the end of 2020 would be highly valuable for constraining the original locations of Polana or Eulalia, among the largest C-complex asteroids in the inner main belt.&amp;amp;#160;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;
&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;strong&amp;gt;Acknowledgements:&amp;lt;/strong&amp;gt; This study was supported by JSPS Core-to-Core program &amp;amp;#8220;International Network of Planetary Sciences&amp;amp;#8221;, CNES, and Univ. Co?te d&amp;amp;#8217;Azur.&amp;amp;#160;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;
&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;strong&amp;gt;References:&amp;lt;/strong&amp;gt;&amp;amp;#160; [1] Watanabe et al., SSR, 208, 3-16, 2017. [2] Tsuda et at., Acta Astronaut. 91, 356-363, 2013. [3] Watanabe et al., Science, 364, 268-272, 2019. [4] Sugita et al., Science, 364, eaaw0422, 2019. [5] Kitazato et al., Science, 364, 272-275, 2019. [6] Michel et al., Nature Comm., 11, 5184, 2020. [7] Morota et al., Science, 368, 654-659, 2020. [8] Akarawa et al. Science, 368, 67-671, 2020. [9] Jaumann et al. Science, 365, 817-820, 2019.&amp;amp;#160; [10] Grott et al., Nature Astron. 3, 971-976, 2019.&amp;amp;#160; [11] Okada et al., Nature, 579, 518-522, 2020. [12] Sugimoto et al. 51st LPSC, #1770, 2020.&amp;amp;#160; [13] Grimm and McSween, Science, 259, 653-655, 1993.&amp;amp;#160; [14] Kruijer et al., PNAS, 114, 6712-6716, 2017.&amp;amp;#160;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;

DOI： 10.5194/epsc2020-995

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Springer Science and Business Media LLC  

DOI： 10.1007/s11214-020-00737-z

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Other Link： http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11214-020-00737-z/fulltext.html

Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Springer Science and Business Media LLC  

DOI： 10.1038/s41550-020-1179-z

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Other Link： http://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1179-z

Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：EDP Sciences  

<italic>Context.</italic> The Hayabusa2 spacecraft launched by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has been conducting observations of the asteroid (162173) Ryugu since June 2018. The Telescopic Optical Navigation Camera (ONC-T) onboard Hayabusa2 has obtained thousands of images under a variety of illumination and viewing conditions.


<italic>Aims.</italic> Our objective is to examine and validate the camera calibration, derive a photometric correction for creating global albedo maps, and to interpret the photometric modeling results to characterize the surface of Ryugu.


<italic>Methods.</italic> We observed (162173) Ryugu with the Gemini-South telescope, and combined these measurements with other published ground-based observations of the asteroid. The ground-based observations were compared with the data obtained by ONC-T in order to validate the radiometric calibration mutually. We used a combination of the Hapke disk-integrated and disk-resolved model equations to simultaneously analyze the combined ground- and spacecraft-based data.


<italic>Results.</italic> The average spectrum of Ryugu was classified as Cb-type following the SMASSII taxonomy and C/F-type following the Tholen taxonomy based on spacecraft observations. We derived Hapke model parameters for all seven color filters, which allowed us to photometrically correct images to within an error of &lt;10% for ~80% of the image pixels used in the modeling effort. Using this model, we derived a geometric albedo of 4.0 ± 0.5% (<italic>v</italic> band) for Ryugu. The average reflectance factor at the standard illumination condition was 1.87 ± 0.14% in the <italic>v</italic> band. Moreover we measured a phase reddening of (2.0 ± 0.7) × 10⁻³ <italic>μ</italic>m⁻¹ deg⁻¹ for Ryugu, similar to that observed for the asteroid (101955) Bennu.


<italic>Conclusions.</italic> The global color map showed that the general trend was for darker regions to also be redder regions, however there were some distinct exceptions to this trend. For example, Otohime Saxum was bright and red while Kibidango crater was dark and blue. The darkness and flatness of Ryugu’s reflectance might be caused by a high abundance of organic materials.

DOI： 10.1051/0004-6361/201937096

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)  

The near-Earth asteroid (162173) Ryugu is thought to be a primitive carbonaceous object that contains hydrated minerals and organic molecules. We report sample collection from Ryugu’s surface by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft on 21 February 2019. Touchdown images and global observations of surface colors are used to investigate the stratigraphy of the surface around the sample location and across Ryugu. Latitudinal color variations suggest the reddening of exposed surface material by solar heating and/or space weathering. Immediately after touchdown, Hayabusa2’s thrusters disturbed dark, fine grains that originate from the redder materials. The stratigraphic relationship between identified craters and the redder material indicates that surface reddening occurred over a short period of time. We suggest that Ryugu previously experienced an orbital excursion near the Sun.

DOI： 10.1126/science.aaz6306

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PubMed

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)  

The Hayabusa2 spacecraft investigated the small asteroid Ryugu, which has a rubble-pile structure. We describe an impact experiment on Ryugu using Hayabusa2’s Small Carry-on Impactor. The impact produced an artificial crater with a diameter &gt;10 meters, which has a semicircular shape, an elevated rim, and a central pit. Images of the impact and resulting ejecta were recorded by the Deployable CAMera 3 for &gt;8 minutes, showing the growth of an ejecta curtain (the outer edge of the ejecta) and deposition of ejecta onto the surface. The ejecta curtain was asymmetric and heterogeneous and it never fully detached from the surface. The crater formed in the gravity-dominated regime; in other words, crater growth was limited by gravity not surface strength. We discuss implications for Ryugu’s surface age.

DOI： 10.1126/science.aaz1701

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Elsevier BV  

Asteroid 162173 Ryugu has numerous craters. The initial measurement of impact craters on Ryugu, by Sugita et al. (2019), is based on Hayabusa2 ONC images obtained during the first month after the arrival of Hayabusa2 in June 2018. Utilizing new images taken until February 2019, we constructed a global impact crater catalogue of Ryugu, which includes all craters larger than 20 m in diameter on the surface of Ryugu. As a result, we identified 77 craters on the surface of Ryugu. Ryugu shows variation in crater density which cannot be explained by the randomness of cratering; there are more craters at lower latitudes and fewer at higher latitudes, and fewer craters in the western bulge (160 degrees E - 290 degrees E) than in the region around the meridian (300 degrees E - 30 degrees E). This variation implies a complicated geologic history for Ryugu. It seems that the variation in crater density indicates that the equatorial ridge located in the western hemisphere is relatively young, while that located in the eastern hemisphere is a fossil structure formed during the short rotational period in the distant past.

DOI： 10.1016/j.icarus.2019.113527

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Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

During the touchdowns of the "Hayabusa2" spacecraft on the asteroid Ryugu, some of the ejected surface materials were scattered toward the spacecraft. Apart from impact sampling by firing a metallic projectile, another mechanism of this phenomenon is surface material ejecta from formation of a crater by RCS thrusts of the spacecraft during its ascent from the asteroid surface after the touchdown. We conducted ground experiments of gas injection into simulated soil under vacuum in order to investigate the interaction between thruster plume and asteroidal regolith.

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Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

The Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully landed on the asteroid Ryugu on February 22nd, 2019. Because of the abundance of boulders, the touchdown operation required high accuracy for spacecraft safety. This research, therefore, investigates a precision landing sequence using retroreflective marker tracking. The trajectory for the touchdown operation is computed based on a high-fidelity gravity model to minimize the landing error. This paper provides trajectory reconstruction results based on actual flight data. Consequently, it is demonstrated that a landing accuracy of 3 m can be achieved, resulting in the successful touchdown.

DOI： 10.2514/1.A34683

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：EDP Sciences  

After its release and a descent and bouncing phase, the Hayabusa2 lander MASCOT came to a final rest and MASCOT’s camera MASCam acquired a set of images of the surface of Ryugu. With MASCam’s instantaneous field of view of about 1 mrad, the images provide pixel scales from 0.2 to 0.5 mm pixel⁻¹ in the foreground and up to 1 cm pixel⁻¹ for surface parts in the background. Using a stereo-photogrammetric analysis of the MASCam images taken from slightly different positions due to commanded and unintentional movements of the MASCOT lander, we were able to determine the orientation for the different measurement positions. Furthermore, we derived a 3D surface model of MASCOT’s vicinity. Although the conditions for 3D stereo processing were poor due to very small stereo angles, the derived 3D model has about 0.5 cm accuracy in the foreground at 20 cm distance and about 1.5 cm at a distance of 40–50 cm.

DOI： 10.1051/0004-6361/201936760

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：EDP Sciences  

A high-resolution 3D surface model, map-projected to a digital terrain model (DTM), and precisely ortho-rectified context images (orthoimages) of MASCOT landing site area are important data sets for the scientific analysis of relevant data that have been acquired with MASCOT’s image camera system MASCam and other instruments (e.g., the radiometer MARA and the magnetometer MASMag). We performed a stereo-photogrammetric (SPG) analysis of 1050 images acquired from the Hayabusa2 Optical Navigation Camera system (ONC) during the asteroid characterization phase and the MASCOT release phase in early October 2018 to construct a photogrammetric control point network of asteroid (162173) Ryugu. We validated existing rotational parameters for Ryugu and improved the camera orientation (position and pointing) of the ONC images to decimeter accuracy using SPG bundle block adjustment. We produced a high-resolution DTM of the entire MASCOT landing site area. Finally, based on this DTM, a set of orthoimages from the highest-resolution ONC images around MASCOT’s final rest position complements the results of this analysis.

DOI： 10.1051/0004-6361/201936759

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：EDP Sciences  

Images from the Optical Navigation Camera system (ONC) onboard the Hayabusa2 spacecraft show the MASCOT lander during its descent to the surface of asteroid (162173) Ryugu. We used results from a previous stereo-photogrammetric analysis that provided precise ONC image orientation data (camera position and pointing), ONC orthoimages, and an ONC-based 3D surface model to combine them with the visibilities of MASCOT itself and its shadow on-ground within the ONC images. We integrated additional information from instruments onboard MASCOT (MASMag, MARA, MASCam) and derived MASCOT’s release position and modeled its free-fall descent path and its velocity over 350 s from its release at ∼41 m altitude above ground until its first contact with the surface of Ryugu. After first contact, MASCOT bounced over the surface of Ryugu for 663 s and came to rest at its first settlement point after four intermediate surface contacts. We again used ONC images that show MASCOT and partly its shadow and reconstructed the bouncing path and the respective velocities of MASCOT. The achieved accuracy for the entire descent and bouncing path is ∼0.1 m (1<italic>σ</italic>).

DOI： 10.1051/0004-6361/201936757

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：SPIE-Intl Soc Optical Eng  

DOI： 10.1117/1.jatis.5.4.044004

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Elsevier BV  

In 2018, the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2, arrived at the small asteroid Ryugu. The surface of this C-type asteroid is covered with numerous boulders whose size and shape distributions are investigated in this study. Using a few hundred Optical Navigation Camera (ONC) images with a pixel scale of approximately 0.65 m, we focus on boulders greater than 5 m in diameter. Smaller boulders are also considered using five arbitrarily chosen ONC close-up images with pixel scales ranging from 0.7 to 6 cm. Across the entire surface area (~2.7 km ) of Ryugu, nearly 4400 boulders larger than 5 m were identified. Boulders appear to be uniformly distributed across the entire surface, with some slight differences in latitude and longitude. At ~50 km , the number density of boulders larger than 20 m is twice as large as on asteroid Itokawa (or Bennu). The apparent shapes of Ryugu's boulders resemble laboratory impact fragments, with larger boulders being more elongated. The ratio of the total volume of boulders larger than 5 m to the total excavated volume of craters larger than 20 m on Ryugu can be estimated to be ~94%, which is comparatively high. These observations strongly support the hypothesis that most boulders found on Ryugu resulted from the catastrophic disruption of Ryugu's larger parent body, as described in previous papers (Watanabe et al., 2019; Sugita et al., 2019). The cumulative size distribution of boulders larger than 5 m has a power-index of −2.65 ± 0.05, which is comparatively shallow compared with other asteroids visited by spacecraft. For boulders smaller than 4 m, the power-index is even shallower and ranges from −1.65 ± 0.05 to −2.01 ± 0.06. This particularly shallow power-index implies that some boulders are buried in Ryugu's regolith. Based on our observations, we suggest that boulders near the equator might have been buried by the migration of finer material and, as a result, the number density of boulders larger than 5 m in the equatorial region is lower than at higher latitudes. 2 −2

DOI： 10.1016/j.icarus.2019.05.019

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：SPIE-INT SOC OPTICAL ENGINEERING  

We present herein the development of high-efficiency reflective grating by holographic processing with the primary objective to perform exoplanet science studies in the ultraviolet (UV) wavelength region using space-borne telescopes. While the final development goal is aspheric grating, in this study, we manufactured planar grating samples with laminar and blazed grooves for our first step to establish the processing conditions and evaluate the characteristics of each grating. The geometry of the manufactured gratings is 30 x 30 x 10 mm, and their groove density is 2400/mm. An atomic force microscope (AFM) evaluation confirmed that laminar and blazed grooves were constructed on the surface of each grating. The measured absolute diffraction efficiency achieved by the brazed grating was 40.2 % and 44.1 % at wavelengths of 122 nm and 131 nm, respectively. These values are higher than those of the laminar grating by a factor of similar to 1.5.

DOI： 10.1117/12.2532484

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

© 2017 The Authors. The near-Earth asteroid (162173) Ryugu is a 900-m-diameter dark object expected to contain primordial material from the solar nebula. The Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) landed on Ryugu’s surface on 3 October 2018. We present images from the MASCOT camera (MASCam) taken during the descent and while on the surface. The surface is covered by decimeter- to meter-sized rocks, with no deposits of fine-grained material. Rocks appear either bright, with smooth faces and sharp edges, or dark, with a cauliflower-like, crumbly surface. Close-up images of a rock of the latter type reveal a dark matrix with small, bright, spectrally different inclusions, implying that it did not experience extensive aqueous alteration. The inclusions appear similar to those in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites.

DOI： 10.1126/science.aaw8627

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Elsevier {BV}  

DOI： 10.1016/j.icarus.2019.01.015

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

The Hayabusa2 spacecraft arrived at the near-Earth carbonaceous asteroid 162173 Ryugu in 2018. We present Hayabusa2 observations of Ryugu's shape, mass, and geomorphology. Ryugu has an oblate "spinning top" shape, with a prominent circular equatorial ridge. Its bulk density, 1.19 ± 0.02 grams per cubic centimeter, indicates a high-porosity (>50%) interior. Large surface boulders suggest a rubble-pile structure. Surface slope analysis shows Ryugu's shape may have been produced from having once spun at twice the current rate. Coupled with the observed global material homogeneity, this suggests that Ryugu was reshaped by centrifugally induced deformation during a period of rapid rotation. From these remote-sensing investigations, we identified a suitable sample collection site on the equatorial ridge.

DOI： 10.1126/science.aav8032

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

© 2019. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.. 162173 Ryugu, the target of Hayabusa2, has a round shape with an equatorial ridge, which is known as a spinning top shape. A strong centrifugal force is a likely contributor to Ryugu's top-shaped features. Observations by the Optical Navigation Camera on board Hayabusa2 show a unique longitudinal variation in geomorphology; the western side of this asteroid, later called the western bulge, has a smooth surface and a sharp equatorial ridge, compared to the other side. Here, we propose a structural deformation process that generated the western bulge. Applying the mission-derived shape model, we employ a finite element model technique to analyze the locations that experience structural failure within the present shape. Assuming that materials are uniformly distributed, our model shows the longitudinal variation in structurally failed regions when the spin period is shorter than ∼3.75 hr. Ryugu is structurally intact in the subsurface region of the western bulge while other regions are sensitive to structural failure. We infer that this variation is indicative of the deformation process that occurred in the past, and the western bulge is more relaxed structurally than the other region. Our analysis also shows that this deformation process might occur at a spin period between ∼3.5 and ∼3.0 hr, providing the cohesive strength ranging between ∼4 and ∼10 Pa.

DOI： 10.3847/2041-8213/ab0e8b

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：The Lunar and Planetary Institute  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：American Association for the Advancement of Science  

DOI： 10.1126/science.aaw0422

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

© 2019 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All rights reserved. The near-Earth asteroid 162173 Ryugu, the target of the Hayabusa2 sample-return mission, is thought to be a primitive carbonaceous object. We report reflectance spectra of Ryugu's surface acquired with the Near-Infrared Spectrometer (NIRS3) on Hayabusa2, to provide direct measurements of the surface composition and geological context for the returned samples. A weak, narrow absorption feature centered at 2.72 micrometers was detected across the entire observed surface, indicating that hydroxyl (OH)-bearing minerals are ubiquitous there. The intensity of the OH feature and low albedo are similar to thermally and/or shock-metamorphosed carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. There are few variations in the OH-band position, which is consistent with Ryugu being a compositionally homogeneous rubble-pile object generated from impact fragments of an undifferentiated aqueously altered parent body.

DOI： 10.1126/science.aav7432

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：SPRINGER  

Thousands of exoplanets have now been discovered with a huge range of masses, sizes and orbits: from rocky Earth-like planets to large gas giants grazing the surface of their host star. However, the essential nature of these exoplanets remains largely mysterious: there is no known, discernible pattern linking the presence, size, or orbital parameters of a planet to the nature of its parent star. We have little idea whether the chemistry of a planet is linked to its formation environment, or whether the type of host star drives the physics and chemistry of the planet's birth, and evolution. ARIEL was conceived to observe a large number (1000) of transiting planets for statistical understanding, including gas giants, Neptunes, super-Earths and Earth-size planets around a range of host star types using transit spectroscopy in the 1.25-7.8m spectral range and multiple narrow-band photometry in the optical. ARIEL will focus on warm and hot planets to take advantage of their well-mixed atmospheres which should show minimal condensation and sequestration of high-Z materials compared to their colder Solar System siblings. Said warm and hot atmospheres are expected to be more representative of the planetary bulk composition. Observations of these warm/hot exoplanets, and in particular of their elemental composition (especially C, O, N, S, Si), will allow the understanding of the early stages of planetary and atmospheric formation during the nebular phase and the following few million years. ARIEL will thus provide a representative picture of the chemical nature of the exoplanets and relate this directly to the type and chemical environment of the host star. ARIEL is designed as a dedicated survey mission for combined-light spectroscopy, capable of observing a large and well-defined planet sample within its 4-year mission lifetime. Transit, eclipse and phase-curve spectroscopy methods, whereby the signal from the star and planet are differentiated using knowledge of the planetary ephemerides, allow us to measure atmospheric signals from the planet at levels of 10-100 part per million (ppm) relative to the star and, given the bright nature of targets, also allows more sophisticated techniques, such as eclipse mapping, to give a deeper insight into the nature of the atmosphere. These types of observations require a stable payload and satellite platform with broad, instantaneous wavelength coverage to detect many molecular species, probe the thermal structure, identify clouds and monitor the stellar activity. The wavelength range proposed covers all the expected major atmospheric gases from e.g. H2O, CO2, CH4 NH3, HCN, H2S through to the more exotic metallic compounds, such as TiO, VO, and condensed species. Simulations of ARIEL performance in conducting exoplanet surveys have been performed - using conservative estimates of mission performance and a full model of all significant noise sources in the measurement - using a list of potential ARIEL targets that incorporates the latest available exoplanet statistics. The conclusion at the end of the Phase A study, is that ARIEL - in line with the stated mission objectives - will be able to observe about 1000 exoplanets depending on the details of the adopted survey strategy, thus confirming the feasibility of the main science objectives.

DOI： 10.1007/s10686-018-9598-x

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：SPIE-SOC PHOTO-OPTICAL INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERS  

The World Space Observatory for Ultraviolet (WSO-UV) is an orbital optical telescope with a 1.7-m diameter primary mirror currently under development. The WSO-UV is aimed to operate in the 115- to 310-nm UV spectral range. Its two major science instruments are UV spectrographs and UV imaging field cameras with filter wheels. The WSO-UV project is currently in the implementation phase, with a tentative launch date in 2023. As designed, the telescope field of view in the focal plane is not fully occupied by instruments. Recently, two additional instruments devoted to exoplanets have been proposed for WSO-UV, which are the focus of this paper. UVSPEX, a UV-spectrograph for exoplanets, aims to determine atomic hydrogen and oxygen abundance in the exospheres of terrestrial exoplanets. The spectral range is 115 to 130 nm, which enables simultaneous measurement of hydrogen and oxygen emission intensities during an exoplanet transit. A study of exosphere transit photometric curves can help differentiate among different types of rocky planets. The exospheric temperature of an Earth-like planet is much higher than that of a Venus-like planet because of the low mixing ratio of the dominant coolant (CO2) in the upper atmosphere of the former, which causes a large difference in transit depth at the oxygen emission line. Thus, whether the terrestrial exoplanet is Earth-like, Venus-like, or other can be determined. A Stellar Coronagraph for Exoplanet Direct Imaging (SCEDI) is aimed to directly detect the starlight reflected from exoplanets orbiting their parent stars or from the stellar vicinity including circumstellar disks, dust, and clumps. SCEDI will create an achromatic (optimized to 420- to 700-nm wavelength range), high-contrast stellocentric coronagraphic image of a circumstellar vicinity. The two instruments, such as UVSPEX and SCEDI, share common power and control modules. The present communication outlines the science goals of both proposed instruments and explains some of their engineering features. (C) 2018 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)

DOI： 10.1117/1.JATIS.4.4.044001

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：SPRINGEROPEN  

The status and initial products of the 1-mu m camera onboard the Akatsuki mission to Venus are presented. After the successful retrial of Venus' orbit insertion on Dec. 2015 (5 years after the failure in Dec. 2010), and after a long cruise under intense radiation, damage in the detector seems small and fortunately insignificant in the final quality of the images. More than 600 dayside images have been obtained since the beginning of regular operation on Apr. 2016 although nightside images are less numerous (about 150 in total at three wavelengths) due to the light scattered from the bright dayside. However, data acquisition stopped after December 07, 2016, due to malfunction of the electronics and has not been resumed since then. The 0.90-mu m dayside images are of sufficient quality for the cloud-tracking procedure to retrieve wind field in the cloud region. The results appear to be similar to those reported by previous 1-mu m imaging by Galileo and Venus Express. The representative altitude sampled for such dayside images is estimated to be 51-55 km. Also, the quality of the nightside 1.01-mu m images is sufficient for a search for active volcanism, since interference due to cloud inhomogeneity appears to be insignificant. The quality of the 0.97-mu m images may be insufficient to achieve the expected spatial resolution for the near-surface H2O mixing ratio retrievals.

DOI： 10.1186/s40623-017-0773-5

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japanese Society for Planetary Sciences  

DOI： 10.14909/yuseijin.27.3_207

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE  

Hayabusa2, the first sample return mission to a C-type asteroid was launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on December 3, 2014 and will arrive at the asteroid in the middle of 2018 to collect samples from its surface, which may contain both hydrated minerals and organics. The optical navigation camera (ONC) system on board the Hayabusa2 consists of three individual framing CCD cameras, ONC-T for a telescopic nadir view, ONC-W1 for a wide-angle nadir view, and ONC-W2 for a wide-angle slant view will be used to observe the surface of Ryugu. The cameras will be used to measure the global asteroid shape, local morphologies, and visible spectroscopic properties. Thus, image data obtained by ONC will provide essential information to select landing (sampling) sites on the asteroid. This study reports the results of initial inflight calibration based on observations of Earth, Mars, Moon, and stars to verify and characterize the optical performance of the ONC, such as flat-field sensitivity, spectral sensitivity, point-spread function (PSF), distortion, and stray light of ONC-T, and distortion for ONC-W1 and W2. We found some potential problems that may influence our science observations. This includes changes in sensitivity of flat fields for all bands from those that were measured in the pre-flight calibration and existence of a stray light that arises under certain conditions of spacecraft attitude with respect to the sun. The countermeasures for these problems were evaluated by using data obtained during initial in-flight calibration. The results of our inflight calibration indicate that the error of spectroscopic measurements around 0.7 mu m using 0.55, 0.70, and 0.86 mu m bands of the ONC-T can be lower than 0.7% after these countermeasures and pixel binning. This result suggests that our ONC-T would be able to detect typical strength (similar to 3%) of the serpentine absorption band often found on CM chondrites and low albedo asteroids with &gt;= 4 sigma confidence. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

DOI： 10.1016/j.icarus.2017.09.11

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：SPRINGER HEIDELBERG  

We provide an overview of data products from observations by the Japanese Venus Climate Orbiter, Akatsuki, and describe the definition and content of each data-processing level. Levels 1 and 2 consist of non-calibrated and calibrated radiance (or brightness temperature), respectively, as well as geometry information (e.g., illumination angles). Level 3 data are global-grid data in the regular longitude-latitude coordinate system, produced from the contents of Level 2. Non-negligible errors in navigational data and instrumental alignment can result in serious errors in the geometry calculations. Such errors cause mismapping of the data and lead to inconsistencies between radiances and illumination angles, along with errors in cloud-motion vectors. Thus, we carefully correct the boresight pointing of each camera by fitting an ellipse to the observed Venusian limb to provide improved longitude-latitude maps for Level 3 products, if possible. The accuracy of the pointing correction is also estimated statistically by simulating observed limb distributions. The results show that our algorithm successfully corrects instrumental pointing and will enable a variety of studies on the Venusian atmosphere using Akatsuki data.

DOI： 10.1186/s40623-017-0749-5

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：ELSEVIER SCI LTD  

Mass spectrometry has been widely used in lander missions to characterize the volatiles in rocks and soils on planetary surfaces. A good vacuum seal is very important for introducing such solid samples to a vacuum chamber and ejecting them. However, multiple measurements require many metal gaskets, leading to extra weight and complexity for the instruments. In this study, we investigate the capability of three kinds of elastomeric O-rings (Viton, Nexus-SLT, and Nexus-FV) as vacuum seals for mass spectrometric measurements, particularly for in situ K-Ar dating on Mars. First, thermal cycle tests revealed that low-temperature-resistant O-rings can maintain pressure &lt; 10(-5) Pa at -60 degrees C under 1 bar ambient pressure, whereas Viton O-rings leaked at -25 degrees C. Then, the amount of Ar-40 due to out gassing from the O-rings and permeation under the ambient pressure of 650 Pa or 3 Pa was measured and compared with the amounts of Ar-40 that a flight-equivalent laser would liberate from potential target Martian rocks. The measured amounts were &lt; 1% of that a target rock with 5000 ppm K2O and an age of 4.2 Ga would yield. These results suggest that a Viton O-ring can maintain the AT blank low under the Mars atmospheric pressure when temperatures are higher than -25 degrees C. A double O-ring seal using the low-temperature resistant elastomers would be an alternative approach at lower temperatures. The elastomeric O-rings would be useful for constructing a small and light-weighted mass spectrometric instrument for in situ K-Ar dating on Mars. (C) 2017 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DOI： 10.1016/j.asr.2017.07.002

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：SPRINGER  

The optical navigation camera telescope (ONC-T) is a telescopic framing camera with seven colors onboard the Hayabusa2 spacecraft launched on December 3, 2014. The main objectives of this instrument are to optically navigate the spacecraft to asteroid Ryugu and to conduct multi-band mapping the asteroid. We conducted performance tests of the instrument before its installation on the spacecraft. We evaluated the dark current and bias level, obtained data on the dependency of the dark current on the temperature of the charge-coupled device (CCD). The bias level depends strongly on the temperature of the electronics package but only weakly on the CCD temperature. The dark-reference data, which is obtained simultaneously with observation data, can be used for estimation of the dark current and bias level. A long front hood is used for ONC-T to reduce the stray light at the expense of flatness in the peripheral area of the field of view (FOV). The central area in FOV has a flat sensitivity, and the limb darkening has been measured with an integrating sphere. The ONC-T has a wheel with seven bandpass filters and a panchromatic glass window. We measured the spectral sensitivity using an integrating sphere and obtained the sensitivity of all the pixels. We also measured the point-spread function using a star simulator. Measurement results indicate that the full width at half maximum is less than two pixels for all the bandpass filters and in the temperature range expected in the mission phase except for short periods of time during touchdowns.

DOI： 10.1007/s11214-015-0227-y

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：IOP PUBLISHING LTD  

The water production rate of a comet is one of the. fundamental parameters necessary. to understand cometary activity when a comet approaches the Sun within 2.5 au, because water is the most abundant icy material in the cometary nucleus. Wide-field imaging observations of the hydrogen Ly alpha emission in comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko were performed by the Lyman Alpha Imaging Camera (LAICA) on. board the 50 kg class micro spacecraft, the Proximate Object Close Flyby with Optical Navigation (PROCYON), on UT 2015 September 7.40, 12.37, and 13.17 (corresponding to 25.31, 30.28, and 31.08 days after the perihelion passage of the comet, respectively). We derive the water production rates, QH(2)O, of the comet from Lya images of the comet by using a 2D axi-symmetric Direct Simulation Monte-Carlo model of the atomic hydrogen coma; (1.46. +/- 0.47) x 10(28), (1.24. +/- 0.40) x10(28), and (1.30. +/- 0.42) x 10(28) molecules s(-1) on 7.40, 12.37, and 13.17 September, respectively. These values are comparable to the values from in situ measurements by the Rosetta instruments in the 2015 apparition and the ground-based and space observations during the past apparitions. The comet did not show significant secular change in average water production rates just after the perihelion passage for the apparitions from 1982 to 2015. We emphasize that the measurements of absolute QH(2)O based on the wide field of view (e. g., by the LAICA/PROCYON) are so important to judge the soundness of the coma models used to infer QH(2)O based on in situ measurements by spacecraft, like the Rosetta.

DOI： 10.3847/1538-3881/153/2/76

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Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：Journal of the Physical Society of Japan  

DOI： 10.7566/jpscp.11.040006

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD  

Age is essential information for interpreting the geologic record on planetary surfaces. Although crater counting has been widely used to estimate the planetary surface ages, crater chronology in the inner solar system is largely built on radiometric age data from limited sites on the Moon. This has resulted in major uncertainty in planetary chronology. Because opportunities for sample-return missions are limited, in-situ geochronology measurements from one-way lander/rover missions are extremely valuable. Here we developed an in-situ isochron-based dating method using the K-Ar system, with K and Ar in a single rock sample extracted locally by laser ablation and measured using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) and a quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS), respectively. We built an experimental system combining flight equivalent instruments and measured K-Ar ages for mineral samples with known ages (similar to 1.8 Ga) and K contents (1-8 wt%); we achieved precision of 20% except for a mineral with low mechanical strength. Furthermore, validation measurements with two natural rocks (gneiss slabs) obtained K-Ar isochron ages and initial Ar-40 consistent with known values for both cases. This result supports that our LIBS-MS approach can derive both isochron ages and contributions of non-in situ radiogenic Ar-40 from natural rocks. Error assessments suggest that the absolute ages of key geologic events including the Noachian/Hesperian- and the Hesperian/Amazonian-transition can be dated with 10-20% errors for a rock containing similar to 1 wt% K2O, greatly reducing the uncertainty of current crater chronology models on Mars. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DOI： 10.1016/j.pss.2016.05.004

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：English   Publisher：THE JAPAN SOCIETY FOR AERONAUTICAL AND SPACE SCIENCES  

<p>DESTINY: the Demonstration and Experiment of Space Technology for Interplanetary Voyage, which is a candidate mission of Epsilon Launch Vehicle, plans to execute scientific observations using instruments with the mass of up to about 10 kg on the transfer and Halo orbit of the sun to earth Lagrangian point L1/L2 or on the fly-by orbit of near earth objects (NEO). Potential scientific objects include in-situ observation and remote sensing from these space are solar system explorations, such as, the observations of plasma and energetic particles around the terrestrial magnetosphere, inter-planetary and inter-stellar dust, and NEO. It is also considered to be useful for the pilot observations for future infrared, gamma-ray, and cosmic-ray space astronomical telescope in the deep space. Applied missions of DESTINY will be able to go to deep space with higher mass of payloads. Using the Epsilon Launch Vehicle, it will convey instruments of up to 50 kg to the space between Venus and Mars. DESTINY launched by the improved launch vehicle with the power of M-V rocket will carry payloads of up to 200 kg into the orbit of Venus and Mars. In these phases, Explorations for Venus, Mars, and multiple NEO, and astronomical observations from the deep space observatory will be realized by low cost deep space missions.</p>

DOI： 10.2322/tastj.14.Pk_111

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：Japan Society for Aeronautical and Space Sciences  

DOI： 10.2322/tastj.14.pk_89

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：ELSEVIER SCI LTD  

The Hayabusa2 spacecraft has three framing cameras (ONC-T, ONC-W1, and ONC-W2) for optical navigation to asteroid 1999 JU(3). The ONC-T is a telescopic camera with seven band-pass filters in the visible and near-infrared range. These filters are placed on a wheel, which rotates to put a selected filter for different observations, enabling multiband imaging. Previous ground-based observations suggesting that hydrous materials may be present on the surface of 1999 JU(3) and distributed in relatively limited areas. The presence of hydrous minerals indicates that this asteroid experienced only low to moderate temperatures during its formation, suggesting that primordial materials are preserved. In order to find the best sampling sites, we will perform reflectance spectroscopic observations using the ONC-T near the asteroid after arrival. Finding regions rich in hydrous minerals is the key for this remote sensing observation. In preparation for this, we conducted ground-based experiments for the actual ONC-T flight model to confirm the detectability of the absorption band of Fe-rich serpentine. As a result, we detected the absorption band near 0.7 mu m by reflectance spectroscopy of CM2 chondrites, such as Murchison and Nogoya, which are known to contain the Fe-rich serpentine, and did not detect any 0.7 mu m absorption in Jbilet Winselwan CM2 chondrite with decomposed Fe-rich serpentine. (C) 2015 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DOI： 10.1016/j.asr.2015.06.037

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Elsevier BV  

DOI： 10.1016/j.sab.2015.02.002

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Geochemical Society of Japan  

Age is one of the most important observables in planetary science. The ages of geologic events on planets including Mars, however, are estimated with the crater chronology approach, which is largely based on radiometric age data derived from very limited places on the Moon. Obtaining age data for the inner planets, asteroids, or the satellites of the outer planets is essential for accurate understanding of the history of our solar system. Although sample-return missions can achieve this goal, they are technically very challenging and extremely expensive. Thus, <i>in-situ</i> geochronology measurements with one-way lander/rover missions would be very important. This paper reviews (1) primary scientific issues on planetary chronology, such as uncertainties in the crater chronology models on Mars, (2) recent developments for <i>in-situ</i> dating instruments based on K–Ar, Rb–Sr, or Pb–Pb dating methods, (3) <i>in-situ</i> K–Ar age measurements conducted by NASAs Curiosity rover, and (4) the development status of our <i>in-situ</i> K–Ar isochron dating method based on a combination of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy and quadrupole mass spectrometry for measurements of potassium and argon, respectively. We also discuss perspectives for a future Japanese <i>in-situ</i> geochronology mission to Mars.

DOI： 10.14934/chikyukagaku.48.231

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Other Link： https://jlc.jst.go.jp/DN/JLC/20001008379?from=CiNii

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

The Telescope of Extreme Ultraviolet (TEX) onboard Japan's lunar orbiter KAGUYA provided the first sequential images of the Earth's plasmasphere from the "side" (meridian) view. The TEX instrument obtained the global distribution of the terrestrial helium ions (He+) by detecting resonantly scattered emission at 30.4 nm. One of the most striking features of the plasmasphere found by TEX is an arc-shaped structure of enhanced brightness, which we call a "plasmaspheric filament". In the TEX image on 2 June 2008, the filament structure was clearly aligned to the dipole magnetic field line of L = 3.7 at 7.3 magnetic local time. Our analysis suggests that the filament represents an isolated flux tube filled with four times higher He + density than its neighbors. We found four events of plasmaspheric filament in the images obtained between March and June 2008, and in all four events, the geomagnetic activity was quite low. The plasmaspheric filament in the TEX image is the first evidence that a "finger" structure seen in the IMAGE-EUV image is the projection of an isolated flux tube. © 2013. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.

DOI： 10.1002/grl.50124

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：THE JAPAN SOCIETY FOR AERONAUTICAL AND SPACE SCIENCES  

We have succeeded in imaging of the terrestrial plasmasphere by the Telescope of Extreme Ultraviolet (TEX) aboard Japan's lunar orbiter KAGUYA. The view afforded by the KAGUYA orbit encompasses the plasma distribution in a single exposure, enabling us to examine for the first time the globally-averaged properties of the plasmasphere from the "side" (meridian) perspective. This is the world first image of the plasmasphere from the moon.

DOI： 10.2322/tastj.8.Tn_23

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Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Research paper (conference, symposium, etc.)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a very useful elemental analysis tool in planetary exploration. In this study we conduct LIBS measurements under low pressure (1×10-3 mbar) to investigate the feasibility of LIBS measurement under vacuum conditions. Although the optical emission intensity decreases remarkably under low ambient pressure, our preliminary experimental results indicate that the precision of elemental abundance measurements does not decrease drastically even under 1×10 -3 mbar. This paper suggests that LIBS can be used at the surface of airless bodies, such as the Moon and asteroids and also can be utilized for quantitative analysis of elemental abundance of minerals under lunar surface environment. © 2011 IEEE.

DOI： 10.1109/ICSpT.2011.6064662

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Publishing type：Part of collection (book)  

An earth–orbiting extreme ultraviolet (EUV) spectroscopic mission, EXtreme ultraviolet speCtroscope for ExosphEric Dynamics explore (EXCEED) that will be launched in2012 is now under development. The EXCEED mission will carry out out–of–atmosphere observations of EUV (60–145 nm) emissions from tenuous plasmas around the planets (Mercury, Mars, Venus, and Jupiter). In this paper, we will introducethe general mission overview, the instrument, and the scientific targets.

DOI： 10.1142/9789814355377_0003

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Other Link： http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8160-3553

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD  

Resonant scattering of the lunar sodium exosphere was measured from the lunar orbiter SELENE (Kaguya) from December 2008 to June 2009. Variations in line-of-sight integrated intensity measured on the night-side hemisphere of the Moon could be described as a spherical symmetric distribution of the sodium exosphere with a temperature of 2400-6000 K. Average surface density of sodium atoms in February is well above that in the other months by about 30%. A clear variation in surface density related to the Moon&apos;s passage across the Earth&apos;s magnetotail could not be seen, although sodium density gradually decreased (by 20 +/- 8%) during periods from the first through the last quarter of two lunar cycles. These results suggest that the supra-thermal components of the sodium exosphere are not mainly produced by classical sputtering of solar wind. The variation in sodium density (which depends on lunar-phase angle) is possibly explained by the presence of an inhomogeneous source distribution of photon-stimulated desorption (PSD) on the surface. (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DOI： 10.1016/j.pss.2010.07.025

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：THE JAPAN SOCIETY FOR AERONAUTICAL AND SPACE SCIENCES  

The Upper Atmosphere and Plasma Imager (UPI) was launched in 2007, and went to the moon. From the lunar orbit, two telescopes direct toward the Earth. The moon has no atmosphere, which leads no active emission near the spacecraft, thus we have a high quality image of the near-Earth environment. Moreover the moon orbits the Earth once a month and the Earth is observed from many different directions. This is called a "science from the Moon". The two telescopes are mounted on 2-axis gimbal system, Telescope of Extreme ultraviolet (TEX) and Telescope of Visible light (TVIS). TEX detects the O II (83.4nm) and He II (30.4nm) emissions scattered by ionized oxygen and helium, respectively. The targets of EUV imaging are the polar ionosphere, the polar wind, and the plasmasphere and the inner magnetosphere. The maximum spatial and time resolutions are 0.09 Re and 1 minute, respectively.

DOI： 10.2322/tstj.7.Tk_27

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© 2010 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. An earth-orbiting Extreme Ultraviolet spectroscopic mission, EXtreme ultraviolet spectrosCope for ExosphEric Dynamics explore (EXCEED) that will be launched in 2012 is now under development. The EXCEED mission will carry out observations of Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) emissions from tenuous plasmas around the planets. It is essential for planetary EUV spectroscopy to avoid the Earth’s atmospheric absorption, therefore it should be mandatory to observe above the Earth’s atmosphere. In this paper, we will introduce the general mission overview, the instrument, and the scientific targets.

DOI： 10.1142/9789812838162_0043

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We have succeeded in observations by the Telescope of Extreme Ultraviolet (TEX) aboard Japan's lunar orbiter KAGUYA to characterize the evolution of the Earth's plasmasphere. The view afforded by the KAGUYA orbit encompasses the plasma distribution in a single exposure, enabling us to examine for the first time the globally-averaged properties of the plasmasphere from the side (meridian) view. We focus on a study period that began with a likely moderate erosion event of plasma patches in a geomagnetically disturbed period, and follow refilling of plasma from the upper ionosphere. The Earth's plasmasphere grew up to saturated level at the rate of approximately 1,600 km per day to 4,800 km per day on the equatorial plane. From the “side view” of the Earth, a specific magnetic flux tube with cold dense plasmas was seen and likely moved to outer magnetosphere, even while geomagnetic activity was low. From the moon, we are studying the terrestrial plasmas in the vicinity of the Earth. This is called “Geoscience from the Moon”.

DOI： 10.1142/9789812838162_0009

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD  

Mercury possesses a weak, internal, global magnetic field that supports a small magnetosphere populated by charged particles originating from the solar wind, the planet's exosphere and surface layers. Mercury's exosphere is continuously refilled and eroded through a variety of chemical and physical processes acting in the planet's surface and environment. Using simultaneous two-point measurements from two satellites, ESA's future mission BepiColombo will offer an unprecedented opportunity to investigate magnetospheric and exospheric dynamics at Mercury as well as their interactions with solar radiation and interplanetary dust. The expected data will provide important insights into the evolution of a planet in close proximity of a star. Many payload instruments aboard the two spacecraft making up the mission will be completely, or partially, devoted to studying the close environment of the planet as well as the complex processes that govern it. Coordinated measurements by different onboard instruments will permit a wider range of scientific questions to be addressed than those that could be achieved by the individual instruments acting alone. Thus, an important feature of the BepiColombo mission is that simultaneous two-point measurements can be implemented at a location in space other than the Earth. These joint observations are of key importance because many phenomena in Mercury's environment are temporarily and spatially varying. In the present paper, we focus on some of the exciting scientific goals achievable during the BepiColombo mission through making coordinated observations. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DOI： 10.1016/j.pss.2008.06.005

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD  

The Mercury Sodium Atmosphere Spectral Imager (MSASI) on the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) of the JAXA/ESA Bepi-Colombo (BC) Mission will address a range of fundamental scientific questions pertaining to Mercury&apos;s exosphere. The measurements will provide new information on regolith-exosphere-magnetosphere coupling as well as new understanding of the dynamics governing the exosphere bounded by the planetary surface, the solar wind and interplanetary space. MSASI is a high-dispersion visible spectrometer working in the spectral region near the sodium D(2) emission (589 nm), a major constituent of the Mercury exosphere. A single high-resolution Fabry-Perot etalon is used in combination with a narrow-band interference filter to achieve a compact and efficient instrument design. The etalon and filter are extremely stable with respect to long-term aging and temperature variations. Full-disk images of the planet are obtained by means of a single-axis scanning mirror in combination with the spin of the MMO spacecraft. This paper presents an overview of the MSASI and the design of the Fabry-Perot interferometer used as its spectral analyser.
It is concluded that:
(1) The MSASI optical design is practical and can be implemented without new or critical technology developments.
(2) The thermally stable etalon design is based on concepts, designs and materials that have a good space heritage.
(3) The MSASI instrument will achieve a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) (&gt; 10) in the range of 2K-10M Rayleigh. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DOI： 10.1016/j.pss.2008.07.008

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：TERRA SCIENTIFIC PUBL CO  

Our understanding of plasmaspheric dynamics has increased in recent years largely due to the information generated during the IMAGE-EUV mission. Even though this successful mission has ended, we have succeeded in imaging the terrestrial helium ions (He(+)) by the Telescope of Extreme Ultraviolet (TEX) aboard the Japanese lunar orbiter KAGUYA by detecting resonantly scattered emission at 30.4 nm. The view afforded by the KAGUYA orbit encompasses the plasma (He(+)) distribution in a single exposure, enabling us to examine for the first time the globally averaged properties of the plasmasphere from the "side" (meridian) perspective. The TEX instrument observed a medium-scale density structure in the dawnside plasmasphere during a quiet period (1-2 June 2008). The meridian shape of the structure clearly agreed with the dipole magnetic field line. The TEX instrument also observed the structure in the plasmasphere co-rotating with a duration of 26 h, which is consistent with results from a number of recent studies derived from the IMAGE-EUV mission. These results confirm that the TEX instrument successfully obtained the spatial distribution and temporal variation of the plasmasphere.

DOI： 10.5047/eps.2010.02.006

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION  

The interplanetary dust (IPD) distribution in the inner solar system is not yet well understood because of lack of direct dust measurements in the inner solar system and so one needs to rely on zodiacal light observations that are difficult to interpret. Mercury has an unstable atmosphere, and the source processes of Na in its atmosphere are unclear. Results of past observations have revealed that the atmospheric Na density has no or low correlation with the solar flux, sunspot number, heliocentric distance, or solar radiation pressure. We show that the variability of Mercury&apos;s atmospheric Na density depends strongly on the IPD distribution. That is, Na density is low (high) when Mercury is far away from (close to) the symmetry plane of IPD, and so one can infer the IPD distribution near Mercury orbit from the temporal variability of Na density in Mercury&apos;s atmosphere. Citation: Kameda, S., I. Yoshikawa, M. Kagitani, and S. Okano (2009), Interplanetary dust distribution and temporal variability of Mercury&apos;s atmospheric Na, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L15201, doi:10.1029/2009GL039036.

DOI： 10.1029/2009GL039036

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：TERRA SCIENTIFIC PUBL CO  

The first successful observations of resonant scattering emission from the lunar sodium exosphere were made from the lunar orbiter SELENE (Kaguya) using TVIS instruments during the period 17-19 December, 2008. The emission intensity of the NaD-line decreased by 12 +/- 6%, with an average value of 5.4 kR (kilorayleighs) in this period, which was preceded, by I day, by enhancement of the solar proton flux associated with a corotating interaction region. The results suggest that solar wind particles foster the diffusion of sodium atoms or ions in the lunar regolith up to the surface and that the time scale of the diffusion is a few tens of hours. The declining activity of the Geminid meteor shower is also one possible explanation for the decreasing sodium exosphere.

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：TERRA SCIENTIFIC PUBL CO  

The Upper Atmosphere and Plasma Imager (UPI) was placed in a lunar orbit in order to Study both the Moon and Earth. The UPI consists of two telescopes: a Telescope of Extreme Ultraviolet (TEX) and a Telescope of Visible Light (TVIS), which are both mounted on a two-axis gimbals system. The TVIS is equipped with fast catadioptric optics and a high-sensitivity CCD to image swift aurora and dark airglow ill the terrestrial upper atmosphere. TVIS has a field-of-view equivalent to the Earth&apos;s disk as seen from the Moon. The spatial resolution is about 30 km x 70 km on the Earth&apos;s surface at auroral latitudes. The observation wavelengths can be changed by selecting different bandpass filters. Using the images of the northern and Southern auroral ovals taken by TVIS, the intensities and shapes of the conjugate auroras will be quantitatively compared. Using the an-low imaging, medium- and large-scale ionospheric disturbances will be Studied. In this paper, the instrumental design and performance of TVIS are presented.

DOI： 10.1186/BF03352980

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD  

A rare, but normal, astronomical event occurred on November 9th 2006 (JST) as Mercury passed in front of the Sun from the perspective of the Earth. The abundance of the sodium vapor above the planet limb was observed by detecting an excess absorption in the solar sodium line D, during this event. The observation was performed with a 10-m spectrograph of Czerny-Turnar system at Domeless Solar Tower Telescope at the Hida Observatory in Japan. The excess absorption was red-shifted by 10 pm relative to the solar line, and was measured at the dawnside (eastside) and duskside (westside) of Mercury. Between the dawn and dusksides, an asymmetry of total sodium abundance was clearly identified. At the dawnside, the total sodium column density was 6.1 x 10(10) Na atoms/cm(2), while it was 4.1 x 10(10) Na atoms/cm(2) at the duskside. The investigation of dawn-dusk asymmetry of the sodium exosphere of Mercury is a clue to understand the release mechanism of sodium from the surface rock. Our result suggests that a thermal desorption is a main source process for sodium vapor in the vicinity of Mercury. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DOI： 10.1016/j.pss.2008.07.026

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：ELSEVIER SCI LTD  

The Mercury's Sodium Atmosphere Spectral Imager (MSASI) on BepiColombo (BC) will address a range of fundamental scientific questions pertaining to Mercury's exosphere. The measurements will provide new information on regolith-exosphere-magnetosphere coupling as well as new understanding of the dynamics governing the exosphere bounded by the planetary surface, the solar wind and interplanetary space. MSASI is a high-dispersion visible spectrometer working in the spectral range around sodium D2 emission (589 nm). A tandem Fabry-Perot etalon is used to achieve a compact design. We presents a design of the spectral analyzer using Fabry-Perot interferometer. We conclude that: (1) The MSASI optical design is practical and can be implemented without new or critical technology developments; (2) The thermally-tuned etalon design is based on concepts, designs and materials that have good space heritage. (C) 2007 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DOI： 10.1016/j.asr.2007.09.018

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：ELSEVIER SCI LTD  

We observed sodium emission from Mercury's atmosphere using a Fabry-Perot Interferometer at Haleakala Observatory on June 14, 2006. The Fabry-Perot Interferometer was used as a wavelength-tunable filter. The spectra of the surface reflection were subtracted from the observed spectra because sodium emission is contaminated by the surface reflection of Mercury. The image obtained in our observation shows the sodium exosphere extended to the anti-solar direction. The lifetime of a sodium atom was estimated to be 1.6 x 10(4) to 1.9 X 10(5) s with an error by a factor of 3-4. (C) 2007 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DOI： 10.1016/j.asr.2007.09.039

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：ELSEVIER SCI LTD  

The Mercury's Sodium Atmosphere Spectral Imager (MSASI) on BepiColombo will address fundamental scientific questions pertaining to the Mercury's sodium exosphere. Together, our measurements on the overall scale will provide ample new information on regolith-exosphere-magnetosphere coupling as well as new understanding of the dynamics governing the surface-bounded exosphere. We will compare the four different source mechanisms in preparation for modeling MSASI data and show the feasibility of identifying a process. (C) 2007 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DOI： 10.1016/j.asr.2007.11.024

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：TERRA SCIENTIFIC PUBL CO  

The Upper Atmosphere and Plasma Imager (UPI) is to be launched in 2007 and sent to the Moon. From the lunar orbit, two telescopes are to be directed towards the Earth. The Moon has no atmosphere, which results in there being no active emission near the spacecraft; consequently, we will have a high-quality image of the near-Earth environment. As the Moon orbits the Earth once a month, the Earth will also be observed from many different directions. This is called a "science from the Moon". The two telescopes are mounted on a two-axis gimbal system, the Telescope of Extreme ultraviolet (TEX) and Telescope of Visible light (TVIS). TEX detects the O II (83.4 nm) and He II (30.4 nm) emissions scattered by ionized oxygen and helium, respectively. The targets of extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) imaging are the polar ionosphere, the polar wind, and the plasmasphere and inner magnetosphere. The maximum spatial and time resolutions are 0.09 Re and 1 min, respectively.

DOI： 10.1186/BF03352805

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD  

The Mercury's sodium atmosphere spectral imager (MSASI) on BepiColombo (BC) will address a range of fundamental scientific questions pertaining to Mercury's exosphere. The measurements will provide new information on regolith-exosphere-magnetosphere coupling as well as new understanding of the dynamics governing the exosphere bounded by the planetary surface, the solar wind and interplanetary space. MSASI is a high-dispersion visible spectrometer working in the spectral range around sodium D2 emission (589 nm). A tandem Fabry-Perot etalon is used to achieve a compact design. A one-degree-of-freedom scanning mirror is employed to obtain full-disk images of the planet. This paper presents an overview of the MSASI and the design of its spectral analyzer, which uses a Fabry-Perot interferometer. We conclude that: (1) The MSASI optical design is practical and can be implemented without new or critical technology developments. (2) The thermally tuned etalon design is based on concepts, designs and materials that have good space heritage. (3) The MSASI instrument achieves a high SNR (&gt; 10) in the range of 2k-10 MRayleigh. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DOI： 10.1016/j.pss.2006.01.010

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD  

We conducted continuous spectroscopic observations of the Mercury's sodium exosphere with a 188 cm telescope and a high dispersion echelle spectrograph, for 1-6h in the daytime on December 4, 13, 14, and 15, 2005. To correct the images of the sodium emission blurred by Earth's atmosphere, the observed distribution was deconvolved with the point spread function which was obtained using Hapke's surface reflection model and the observed surface reflection. The average column density of sodium atoms was 1-2 x 10(11) atoms/cm(2) and significant diurnal changes were not observed. However, the sodium densities at low latitudes and high latitude changed during the observation and the rate of change in density at low latitude was higher than that at high latitude on December 14 and 15. Although the rates of suggested release processes are higher than the observed rate, the suggested release processes cannot explain the rapid change in density at low latitude. This may suggest the effect of transport of neutral atoms and the recycling of ions to the surface dominates the time variation in the spatial distribution of exospheric sodium atoms on Mercury. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DOI： 10.1016/j.pss.2006.10.010

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Language：English   Publishing type：Doctoral thesis  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)   Publisher：ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD  

The Mercury Sodium Atmosphere Spectral Imager (MSASI) in the BepiColombo mission will address a wealth of fundamental scientific questions pertaining to the Mercury's exosphere. Together, our measurements on the overall scale will provide ample new information on regolith-exo sphere-magneto sphere coupling as well as new understanding of the dynamics governing the 'surface-bounded exosphere'.
It arises quite clearly from ground-based observations that the regolith of Mercury releases a fraction of its content to the exosphere. Some processes are identified up to now as leading to this ejection, e.g., photon-stimulated desorption. These processes are associated with different energies of ejection and behaviors in different regions of Mercury's surface. Therefore, different types of population are born from the surface, depending on the processes. The MSASI measurements definitely can identify the release processes, how exospheric sodium is born from the regolith. MSASI/BepiColombo is the first and unique opportunity to study the formation, circulation, and maintenance of the surface-bounded exosphere. (c) 2006 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DOI： 10.1016/j.asr.2005.05.134

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency  

Mercury's Sodium Atmosphere Spectral Imager (MSASI) on BepiColombo is under development. MSASI is a high-dispersion visible spectrometer working in the spectral range around sodium D2 emission using a Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI). Discoveries of Na, K and Ca from the ground-based observations clearly arise that the regolith of Mercury releases a fraction of its content to the atmosphere. Some processes are proposed up to now as release mechanisms, e.g. (1) Photon-stimulated desorption, (2) Ion sputtering, and (3) Micro-meteoroid impact/vaporization. Here we use 3D Monte Carlo simulation in these cases to describe the images taken by MSASI. We can see specific spatial distributions of the Mercury atmosphere in each process. Therefore we conclude that MSASI can identify the mechanism of the Mercury atmosphere comparing with our simulation result.

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：ELSEVIER SCI LTD  

The Mercury Sodium Atmosphere Spectral Imager (MSASI) in the BepiColombo mission will address a wealth of fundamental scientific questions pertaining to the Mercury's exosphere. Together, our measurements on the overall scale will provide ample new information on regolith-exosphere-magnetosphere coupling as well as new understanding of the dynamics governing the 'surface-bounded exosphere'.
It arises quite clearly from ground-based observations that the regolith of Mercury releases a fraction of its content to the exosphere. Some processes are identified up to now as leading to this ejection, e.g., photon-stimulated desorption. These processes are associated with different energies of ejection and behaviors in different regions of Mercury's surface. Therefore, different types of population are born from the surface, depending on the processes. The MSASI measurements definitely can identify the release processes, how exospheric sodium is born from the regolith. MSASI/BepiColombo is the first and unique opportunity to study the formation, circulation, and maintenance of the surface-bounded exosphere. (c) 2006 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DOI： 10.1016/j.asr.2005.05.134

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (bulletin of university, research institution)   Publisher：Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency  

The Mercury Sodium Atmosphere Spectral Imager (MSASI) on the BepiColombo/Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) is a high-dispersion Fabry-Perot imager. MSASI will address a wealth of fundamental scientific questions pertaining to the Mercury's exosphere. Together, our measurement on the overall scale will provide ample new information on regolith-exospheremagnetosphere coupling as well as new understanding of the dynamics governing the 'surfacebounded exosphere'. It arises quite clearly from continuous ground-based observations that the regolith of Mercury releases a fraction of its content to Mercury's exosphere. Some processes are identified up to now as leading to this ejection. These processes are associated with different energies of ejection, behavior in different regions of Mercury's surface and eject different types of population from the surface. The responsible processes are (1) Chemical sputtering, (2) Thermal desorption, (3) Photon-stimulated desorption, (4) Ion sputtering, and (5) Micro-meteoroid impact/vaporization. Each candidate seems to be fairly operative, but any cannot completely explain phenomena observed from the Earth. Also, the fate of ejecta from the regolith is still unknown. Some are expected to return to the lithosphere, the other are lost to interplanetary space. Circulation of lithospheric sodium atoms via exosphere-magnetosphere might bring a significant change in the composition of surface layer on Mercury. The MSASI measurements clearly and definitely can identify the release mechanism, how exospheric sodium is born from the regolith, and bring comprehensive picture of global circulation of regolith materials. Also, BepiColombo is the first and unique opportunity to study the formation, circulation, maintenance of this surface-bounded exosphere, which is a different type of terrestrial atmosphere. Below we describe in somewhat more detail the primary scientific objectives of MSASI.

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DOI： 10.1117/12.504964

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD  

Extreme and far ultraviolet imaging spectrometers are proposed for the low-altitude orbiter of the BepiColombo mission. The UV instrument, consisting of the two spectrometers with common electronics, aims at measuring (1) emission lines from molecules, atoms and ions present in the Mercury's tenuous atmosphere and (2) the reflectance spectrum of Mercury's surface. The instrument pursues a complete coverage in UV spectroscopy. The extreme UV spectrometer covers the spectral range of 30-150 nm with the field of view of 5.0degrees, and the spectrum from 130 to 430 nm is obtained by the far UV spectrometer. The extreme UV spectrometer employs multi-layer coating technology to enhance its sensitivity at particular emission lines. This technology enables us to identify small ionospheric signatures such as He II (30.4 nm) and Na II (37.2 nm), which could not be detected with conventional optics. (C) 2003 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

DOI： 10.1016/s0273-1177(03)00446-0

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Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Research paper (bulletin of university, research institution)   Publisher：Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency  

An extreme ultraviolet imaging spectrometer (EUIS) for the Mercury mission is under development. The instrument is designed to measure extreme ultraviolet radiations from the atmosphere of Mercury, which could not be identified by the Mariner 10 mission. In this paper, the performance of a Mo/Si multilayer grating, which is newly developed optics to improve the diffraction efficiency in the EUV, is presented. Two types of grating are fabricated, i.e. mechanical ruling and holographic gratings. The results show;a) Stray light of the holographic grating is less than that of the mechanical ruling grating.b) The efficiency of a Mo/Si multilayer grating is one order higher than that of a gold coated grating.

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：宇宙航空研究開発機構宇宙科学研究所(JAXA)(ISAS)  

平成29年度宇宙航行の力学シンポジウム（2017年12月7日-8日. 宇宙航空研究開発機構宇宙科学研究所（JAXA)(ISAS)）, 相模原市, 神奈川県著者人数: 11名資料番号: SA6000124018

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Language：English   Publisher：Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency(JAXA)(ISAS)  

50th ISAS Lunar and Planetary Symposium (August 3-4, 2017. Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)(ISAS)), Sagamihara, Kanagawa Japan

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：日本航空宇宙学会  

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Other Link： https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/grant/KAKENHI-PROJECT-15K13604/

Language：Japanese   Publisher：Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency(JAXA)(ISAS)  

49th ISAS Lunar and Planetary Symposium (July 20-21, 2016. Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)(ISAS)), Sagamihara, Kanagawa Japan

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japanese Society for Planetary Sciences  

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：日本惑星科学会  

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：日本惑星科学会  

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：日本惑星科学会  

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：日本惑星科学会  

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japanese Society for Planetary Sciences  

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency(JAXA)(ISAS)  

47th ISAS Lunar and Planetary Symposium (August 4-6, 2014. Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)(ISAS)), Sagamihara, Kanagawa Japan

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：日本惑星科学会  

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japanese Society for Planetary Sciences  

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DOI： 10.14909/yuseijin.21.3_267

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：The Japanese Society for Planetary Sciences  

DOI： 10.14909/yuseijin.21.3_239

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The Mercury&#039;s Sodium Atmosphere Spectral Imager (MSASI) on Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO)/ BepiColombo is under development. MSASI is a high-dispersion spectrometer working in the spectral range around sodium D 2 emission. The detector unit employs an Image Intensifier which has twostage micro channel plate (MCP). In this paper, we report the results of performance test for the Image Intensifier. We have focused on the following points. 1. Spectral resolution. 2. Dependency of Dark-Counts on temperature. 3. Radiation tolerance of phosphor (P 46). 4. Tolerance for aging against incident flux.

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Language：Japanese   Publisher：Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency  

One of the methods to research the escaping atmosphere is to observe the resonance-scattered light from the escaping particles. Especially, the escaping H, He and O particles resonantly scatter extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lights (H I: 121.6 nm, He I: 58.4 nm, He II: 30.4 nm, O II: 83.4 nm). Therefore, it is important to develope the optics for EUV. In addition, imaging observation is necessary to observe the temporal variation of the escaping atmosphere. In this method, the optics consist of the bandpass filters and the multilayer-coated mirror for EUV. And the optics were loaded onto the satellites and rockets, and observed EUV. With these optics the demerit is non spectrum observation, in other words, single optics can detect single wavelength of EUV. Therefore plural optics using filters and mirror or the spectroscope are necessary to observe the plural particles simultaneously. But the demerit of spectroscope is much more loss of light than that with filters and mirror.This time we produce the the Mo/Si multilayer-coated gratings for EUV light : 30.4nm, and evaluate their performance. We evaporate on the gratings with top layer of Si: 5.0 nm and 20 pairs of Mo: 4.4nm and Si: 13.3 nm. By Atomic Force Microscope, we verify that the grooves of the multilayer gratings are not buried. In addition, maximum reflective efficiency of multilayer blazed grating is 2.2 %, that of multilayer laminar grating is 2.9 %. By multilayer technology, reflective efficiency of multilayer grating exceeded approximately 5 times higher than that of Pt monolayer grating.

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