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Probe Hayabusa has brought to Earth particles of extraterrestrial origin.. / November 17, 2010 /

Japanese probe «Hayabusa» delivered to Earth the dust particles from the asteroid Itokawa. Told a press conference in Tokyo said the Japanese space agency specialists (JAXA) on the analysis of the contents of the container to return the probe. Brief contents of the report leads BBC News.

Container «Hayabusa» landed in the Australian desert Woomera in June 2010. Inside the container, scientists have discovered tiny particles of dust — in total they numbered about 1,500. The average particle size was several tens or hundreds of micrometers. Until now, researchers could not say with certainty that the dust particles are of extraterrestrial origin — in the probe task is to collect material from an asteroid, but due to technical problems he could not undertake all necessary actions.

It was planned that, sitting on the surface of Itokawa, Hayabusa, launched in 2003, with the help of fire back fragments raise the dust and it settles in the container. But the shooting did not happen, in addition, because of other failures return a probe to Earth was delayed for three years.

In late August, experts JAXA announced that they will be able to present the results of the analysis of the contents of the container only in December 2010, as they removed a speck of dust on one, and to extract all «suspicious» of the particles should have gone a long time. Scientists did not specify whether all the particles they were able to get to this point.

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