{"id":184701,"date":"2025-10-02T09:53:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T09:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/184701\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T09:53:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T09:53:07","slug":"mission-impossible-asteroid-the-size-of-a-house-poses-new-challenge-for-hayabusa2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/184701\/","title":{"rendered":"Mission Impossible? Asteroid the Size of a House Poses New Challenge for Hayabusa2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"Artist\u2019s<\/a>An artist\u2019s impression of Japan\u2019s Hayabusa2 space mission touching down on the surface of the asteroid 1998 KY26. New observations with ESO\u2019s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have revealed that 1998 KY26 is just 11 m wide, almost three times smaller than previously thought, and is spinning once every 5 minutes, which is much faster than expected. The image above shows an updated size comparison between the asteroid and spacecraft. Credit: ESO\/M. Kornmesser. Asteroid: T. Santana-Ros et al. Hayabusa2 model: SuperTKG (CC-BY-SA)<\/p>\n

Astronomers have discovered that asteroid 1998 KY26, the target of Japan\u2019s Hayabusa2 extended mission, is far smaller and faster-spinning than previously thought.<\/p>\n

Astronomers have conducted a new study of the asteroid 1998 KY26 using observatories across the globe, including the European Southern Observatory\u2019s Very Large Telescope (ESO\u2019s VLT<\/a>). Their findings show that the asteroid is nearly three times smaller than earlier estimates and spins much faster than expected.<\/p>\n

This small but fast-moving object has been chosen as the 2031 destination for Japan\u2019s Hayabusa2 extended mission. With only six years remaining until the spacecraft arrives, the updated measurements provide crucial details to help plan operations at the asteroid.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found that the reality of the object is completely different from what it was previously described as,\u201d says astronomer Toni Santana-Ros, a researcher from the University of Alicante, Spain, who led a study on 1998 KY26 published today in Nature Communications.<\/p>\n

The new observations, combined with previous radar data<\/a>, have revealed that the asteroid is just 11 meters wide, meaning it could easily fit inside the dome of the VLT unit telescope used to observe it (see image below). It is also spinning about twice as fast as previously thought: \u201cOne day on this asteroid lasts only five minutes!\u201d he says. Previous data indicated that the asteroid was around 30 meters in diameter and completed a rotation in 10 minutes or so.<\/p>\n

\"Asteroid<\/a>This artist\u2019s impression illustrates the size of the asteroid 1998 KY26 in comparison to one of the Very Large Telescope\u2019s (VLT\u2019s) Unit Telescopes, which has a main mirror about 8m in diameter. As a recent study using ESO\u2019s VLT has shown, 1998 KY26 is only 11 metres wide, meaning the asteroid would fit inside the structure of the very telescope that observed it. This image includes a person for scale in the bottom right. Japan\u2019s Hayabusa2 space mission is planning to rendezvous with this tiny asteroid in six years\u2019 time. Credit: ESO\/M. Kornmesser, A. Ghizzi Panizza (www.albertoghizzipanizza.com). Asteroid model: T. Santana-Ros et al.
\nA Challenge for Hayabusa2<\/p>\n

\u201cThe smaller size and faster rotation now measured will make Hayabusa2\u2019s visit even more interesting, but also even more challenging,\u201d says co-author Olivier Hainaut, an astronomer at ESO in Germany. This is because a touchdown maneuver, where the spacecraft \u2018kisses\u2019 the asteroid (see video below), will be more difficult to perform than anticipated.<\/p>\n

1998 KY26 is set to be the final target asteroid for the Japanese Aerospace eXploration Agency (JAXA)\u2019s Hayabusa2 spacecraft. In its original mission, Hayabusa2 explored the 900-metre-diameter asteroid 162173 Ryugu in 2018, returning asteroid samples to Earth in 2020.<\/p>\n

With fuel remaining, the spacecraft was sent on an extended mission until 2031, when it\u2019s set to encounter 1998 KY26, aiming to learn more about the smallest asteroids. This will be the first time a space mission encounters a tiny asteroid \u2014 all previous missions visited asteroids with diameters in the hundreds or even thousands of meters.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This animation shows the touchdown manoeuvre that Japan\u2019s Hayabusa2 spacecraft is likely to perform when it reaches its target in 2031, in a brief encounter with the asteroid 1998 KY26. Now that a new study has shown that this asteroid is roughly three times smaller than previously expected, and spinning twice as fast, this procedure may be more difficult to conduct. Credit: ESO\/M. Kornmesser. Asteroid: T. Santana-Ros et al. Hayabusa2 model: SuperTKG (CC-BY-SA)<\/p>\n

Observing a Faint Target<\/p>\n

Santana-Ros and his team observed 1998 KY26 from the ground to support the preparation of the mission. Because the asteroid is very small and, hence, very faint, studying it required waiting for a close encounter with Earth and using large telescopes, like ESO\u2019s VLT in Chile\u2019s Atacama Desert.<\/p>\n

The observations revealed that the asteroid has a bright surface and likely consists of a solid chunk of rock, which may have originated from a piece of a planet or another asteroid. However, the team could not completely rule out the possibility that the asteroid is made up of rubble piles loosely sticking together. \u201cWe have never seen a ten-meter-sized asteroid in situ, so we don\u2019t really know what to expect and how it will look,\u201d says Santana-Ros, who is also affiliated with the University of Barcelona.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe amazing story here is that we found that the size of the asteroid is comparable to the size of the spacecraft that is going to visit it! And we were able to characterise such a small object using our telescopes, which means that we can do it for other objects in the future,\u201d says Santana-Ros. \u201cOur methods could have an impact on the plans for future near-Earth asteroid exploration or even asteroid mining.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMoreover, we now know we can characterize even the smallest hazardous asteroids that could impact Earth, such as the one that hit near Chelyabinsk, in Russia in 2013, which was barely larger than KY26,\u201d concludes Hainaut.<\/p>\n

Reference: \u201cHayabusa2 extended mission target asteroid 1998 KY26 is smaller and rotating faster than previously known\u201d by T. Santana-Ros, P. Bartczak, K. Muinonen, A. Ro\u017cek, T. M\u00fcller, M. Hirabayashi, D. Farnocchia, M. Micheli, R. E. Cannon, M. Brozovi\u0107, O. Hainaut, D. Oszkiewicz, A. K. Virkki, L. A. M. Benner, A. Campo Bagatin, P. G. Benavidez, A. Cabrera-Lavers, C. E. Mart\u00ednez-V\u00e1zquez and K. Vivas, 18 September 2025, Nature Communications.
DOI: 10.1038\/s41467-025-63697-4<\/a><\/p>\n

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Follow us on Google<\/a>, Discover<\/a>, and News<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An artist\u2019s impression of Japan\u2019s Hayabusa2 space mission touching down on the surface of the asteroid 1998 KY26.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[27101,800,49,48,59784,92992,66,306,30466],"class_list":{"0":"post-184701","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-asteroid","9":"tag-astronomy","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-european-southern-observatory","13":"tag-hayabusa2-mission","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-space","16":"tag-very-large-telescope"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}