Going on now: the virtual meeting, Itokawa And The Dawn of Asteroidal Sample Return. If you hadn’t been watching the news at the time, it’s easy to- today- forget that the JAXA Hayabusa mission laid the groundwork (in one form or another) for both Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx. This includes both the premature mission plans for Hayabusa itself (originally destined for (4660) Nereus), and the preliminary, modified or abandoned plans before “Hayabusa” finally took its current form. And of course, the work laid down for sample analysis (in-hand examination in detail) formed the template for Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx procedures and work in a way that Genesis (and COMET) and Stardust (and U-2/B-57 flights) simply did not. The meeting program:
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/itokawa2025/program/
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Yano H. In Situ Performance of the Hayabusa Asteroid Sampler on Itokawa: Designed Capability, Operation Consequences, and Eventual Verification by Hayabusa2
Yada T. et al. Present Status of Hayabusa Samples in JAXA [#4004]
Matsuoka M. Japanese Sample Return Missions to Explore Small Bodies
Nakamura T. et al. Itokawa Dust Particles: Summary and Some Recent Results [#4018]
Terada K. U-Pb Systematics of Itokawa Particles: Constraints on the Thermal and Impact Histories of S-Type Asteroid Itokawa
Jourdan F. et al. Asteroid Itokawa…but When and How Did It Form Exactly? [#4023]
Matsumoto T. An Overview of the Space Weathering Structures of the S-Type Asteroid Itokawa [#4008]
Ozdowski N. M. et al. Environmental Effects on Space Weathered Lizardite Grains [#4005]
Bottke W. F. et al. Surface Ages for the Sample Return Asteroids Bennu, Ryugu, and Itokawa [#4007]
Wednesday, January 29, 2025
Chan Q. What We Learned from Itokawa Can Help Us Understand About Aqueous and Impact Processes on Ryugu and Bennu
Dunn T. L. The Decades-Long Search for the Ordinary Chondrite Parent Bodies [#4015]
McGraw A. M. Investigating the Unordinary Ordinary Chondrite: The L/LLs [#4020]
Fries M. D. Rapid Recovery of Meteorites Using Weather Radar: Status, Statistics, and Future Upgrades [#4014]
Brown P. G. Fireball Insights into Asteroidal Boulder Strengths [#4019]
Shober P. M. et al. Neo Families but No Meteorite-Dropping Meteoroid Streams? [#4012]
Goodrich C. A. et al. Polymict Ureilite Meteorites: Poor-Man’s Spaceships [#4016]
Zolensky M. E. Why Are Returned Asteroid Samples Necessary When We Already Have So Many Meteorites? [#4006]
Russell S. S. et al. Salts in Astromaterials and the Importance of Asteroidal Sample Return [#4022]
Hoffmann V. H. et al. The Asteroid-Meteorite Connection: Systematic Micro Raman Spectroscopy on Two New Recent Cases – 2023 CX1 (Saint-Pierre-Le-Vigier L5-6) and 2024 BX1 (Ribbeck, Aubrite) [#4017]
It’s a simple enough matter to start with status reports and briefings, and here you go.
We then go to results. Starting at Itokawa itself, then other asteroids. Pay heed: per Ozdowski et al. (#4005), to simulate space weathering (exposure to the solar wind in particular), asteroid grains are watered. The solar wind is a plasma of hydrogen ions (protons) traveling at speed; when hydrogen hits silicates (SiO4 units) or ores (metal-oxygen deposits), the result is water.
Next we go to deeper implications. If Hayabusa samples are bits of Itokawa, then what pieces of the puzzle do we now have, and what do we still need? The best answers lead to more- better!- questions, and Hayabusa results are no exceptions. And even those questions that got answered in the Itokawa context may still be unanswered in the context of other pieces. The same investigators that did the job for Itokawa are now receiving other meteorites/asteroids.
Sample return: it’s the gift that keeps on giving. When you have context and tight controls on a sample, it’s a far better puzzle piece, to the extent that it will unlock other puzzle pieces.