小行星任务初见成效

• 作者: Chris Palmer
• 来源期刊: 工程（英文）
• 年，卷（期）: 2021,（4）
• 所属期刊栏目: News & Highlights
• 页码范围: 418-420,中插6-中插8
• 页数: 1页
• 语种: 英文

摘要

Space missions targeting asteroids, loosely bound clumps of rock, ice, and metals, some of which are thought to pre-date the sun, are on a roll. In December 2020, the Japan Aerospace Explo-ration Agency (JAXA) completed a mission to scoop up a small amount of material from the asteroid Ryugu and deliver it back to Earth [1]. Earlier, in October 2020, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) acquired a sample, which will begin its return to Earth in March 2021, from the asteroid Bennu [2]. Meanwhile, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) has proposed a similar mission to retrieve a sample from the near-Earth asteroid Kamo'oalewa [3], and a joint NASA–European Space Agency (ESA) effort is preparing a mission to demonstrate the feasibility of nudging an asteroid away from a collision course with Earth [4].