Chinese national Space Management shared the first image of its Tianwen-2 probe, a pathway to the near-Earth asteroid Kamo’oalewa.
The image was captured by a camera on the detector, which is currently more than 3 million kilometers from Earth and shows one of its wings, which includes its solar panels. This is also the first glimpse of the space probe provided by CNSA, which was launched on May 29 at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the town of Zeyuan, China. Tianwen-2’s panel is designed similar to the appearance of NASA’s space probe Lucy, which is exploring asteroids floating near Jupiter. These features can meet the power requirements required for travel.
Tianwen-2’s mission is to land on the surface of Kamo’oalewa, collect samples and return to Earth. The spacecraft is scheduled to land on the surface of an asteroid in July 2026. Before that, it will take months to conduct Kamo’oalewa research from a safe distance to determine its sampling area before conducting a landing exercise, which is the lower gravity of the asteroid, which is a particularly difficult task.
Once the sample is collected, Tianwen-2 will return to Earth and send its samples to the capsule, then try to use Earth’s gravity as a slingshot toward 311p/Panstarrs, an unusual small galaxy that goes beyond Mars, which has comet characteristics including visible tails, including visible tails. Tianwen-2 is expected to carry out this mission in 2035.
The mystery of Hawaii’s quasi-month
Kamo’oalewa is one of the seven known quasi-months on Earth, which seem to be orbiting our planet, but are not actually bound by gravity, but are actually asteroids circling the sun in orbits similar to Earth.
Kamo’oalewa was discovered by astronomers in 2016 at Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii, and its name is “the “Obclining celestial body” of the Hawaiians, located 12 times the Earth, about 4.65 million kilometers from our planet. It is estimated that Kamo’oalewa has a diameter of about 40 to 100 meters, and has maintained its current orbit for 100 years and may be 300 meters more.
Hopefully Tianwen-2 can solve the mystery of the origin of Kamo’oalewa. One theory is that this is a rock that collapsed from the moon millions of years ago. The sampling mission will help multiple scientific studies on the composition of rocky celestial bodies and help scientists seek clues about the formation of the solar system.
Observatory evidence and modeling suggest that Kamo’oalewa has been orbiting the sun for millions of years, despite the unstable trajectory. In addition, direct exploration of such asteroids can also expand knowledge about nearby celestial objects that may pose a threat to the Earth.
This story originally appeared in wired español and has been translated into Spanish.
