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AP – Scientists camping out in the Australian Outback this weekend will be keenly scanning the night sky for the long-delayed return of the first spacecraft to complete a round-trip journey to an asteroid.

The Hayabusa capsule has traveled 1.24 billion miles (2 billion kilometers) in seven years and is expected to land in the desert of South Australia state Sunday night.

Launched by Japan in 2003, Hayabusa is expected to be carrying space material collected during its two brief landings on the asteroid, which will offer insights into the creation and makeup of the solar system.

“There’s absolutely nothing like going to the source,” said Trevor Ireland, associate director for Earth Chemistry at Australian National University and the only Australian on the Hayabusa team. “Hayabusa has sampled an asteroid in situ and soon we will have in hand an actual asteroid. Any sample coming back from (the asteroid) will be a major scientific prize for us.”

He said scientists will learn more from studying the asteroid sample than from meteorites that are burned during their fall on Earth and become contaminated by materials here.

Hayabusa, which means ‘falcon,’ will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere late Sunday night above the Woomera Prohibited Area, a military zone 300 miles (485 kilometers) north of the South Australian state capital of Adelaide.

The main body of the vessel will burn up on re-entry — expected to make a spectacular burst in the midnight sky — but a small container carrying the samples retrieved from the asteroid should parachute to the desert floor. The container will be taken to Japan for study.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency built and launched the asteroid explorer, which landed on its target in late 2005. Hayubasa took photo images from all angles of the 1,640-foot (500-meter) -long asteroid called Itokawa before landing. It was designed to shoot a bullet into the surface of the asteroid that would crush it and propel any material through a long tube into the sample collection container.

There is no certainty that the bullet really fired, scientists say, but they believe that the impact of the tube’s landing would have forced some material upward and into the collection chamber.

“Just the process of landing would have coated the inside with dust,” said Michael Zolensky, one of two NASA scientists involved in the project. “It has the capacity to hold one-tenth of a kilogram (3.53 ounces), but we really only need less than a gram (0.04 ounce) of material. One microscopic grain can be sliced into more than 100 pieces and farmed around the world for testing and research.”

The scientists hope to study how and when the asteroid was formed, its physical properties, what other bodies it may have been in contact with and how the solar wind and radiation have affected it.

The Japanese space agency said the aim of the $200 million project was to know the origin and evolution of the solar system.

If Hayabusa is indeed carrying samples from the asteroid, it would be only the fourth sample return of space material in history — including the moon matter collected by the Apollo missions, comet matter by Stardust and solar matter in the Genesis mission.

Preliminary analysis of the samples will be carried out by the team in Japan, but after one year scientists around the world can apply for access to bits of the asteroid material for research.

For now, though, the Hayabusa scientists admitted to some sleepless nights as the arrival hour finally nears. Zolensky said the years out of sight have not erased Hayabusa from his mind.

“I have a model of it hanging in my office,” he said. “We have worked 20 years on this mission. For something to go all the way out to an asteroid and come back is extremely exciting.”

NOTE: here is a link to the previous post – Hayabusa Asteroid Probe Heading Back To Earth…Lon

Scientists Keenly Wait In Australian Outback For Asteroid Probe Return
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‘Where white man went incorrect….’

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Jodie Foster – not the actress but one who lives along Parmac Road in Chico – has become accustomed to paranormal events in her home. She suffered from ghost sightings, nightmares, and electrical appliances turning themselves on and off. Shortly after moving in the house in 2000 her daughter started seeing a lady in white who would kiss her on the forehead before she fell asleep. One particular dream that Foster had was that of a woman being tortured, and a woman being buried in a mountainous location. It all culminated recently when Foster fled the home at 3am with her daughter in her arms; inside the house the clocks were spinning, the lights were flashing on and off and Ernie the doll was continually saying ‘I feel fantastic’! It was only after she left the house that she learned of its history. A previous couple who lived there abducted a young girl and kept her as a sex slave for seven years. The ghostly events are still occurring with the new residents. Foster believes the ghost is crying out for justice. (Source: The Orion: 3rd November 2009).

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abc.net.au – It may seem odd, but the locals swear it is right. People in a Japanese mountain region have reported a number of kangaroo sightings, and journalists are now trying to stalk the marsupials.

The descriptions given by the apparent eyewitnesses seem close enough. For years they have spoken of a beige animal with large ears, one to 1.5 metres tall, that stands by the roadside and then hops away.

The sightings were all reported in the Mayama mountain district of Osaki city in Miyagi prefecture, a community of 441 households, located about 350 kilometres north of Tokyo.

The city has received about 30 reports of “kangaroo-like animals”, including three cases since December, when the mountain area was often covered in snow, said local official Tetsuya Sasaki.

“People aged in their 40s to their 60s have said they have spotted what looked like kangaroos while travelling to and from work in the early mornings and evenings,” said Mr Sasaki.

Rumours about kangaroo sightings started about seven years ago, and television crews and newspapers have set up hidden cameras in the district, but have so far failed to capture an image of a kangaroo.

As a joke, “some people have place up ‘kangaroo crossing’ signs on their roadside properties,” Mr Sasaki said.

Kangaroos are on show at many Japanese zoos and can be imported by individuals.

Posted Tue Mar 9, 2010 1:09am AEDT

It may seem odd, but the locals swear it is right. People in a Japanese mountain region have reported a number of kangaroo sightings, and journalists are now trying to stalk the marsupials.

The descriptions given by the apparent eyewitnesses seem close enough. For years they have spoken of a beige animal with large ears, one to 1.5 metres tall, that stands by the roadside and then hops away.

The sightings were all reported in the Mayama mountain district of Osaki city in Miyagi prefecture, a community of 441 households, located about 350 kilometres north of Tokyo.

The city has received about 30 reports of “kangaroo-like animals”, including three cases since December, when the mountain area was often covered in snow, said local official Tetsuya Sasaki.

“People aged in their 40s to their 60s have said they have spotted what looked like kangaroos while travelling to and from work in the early mornings and evenings,” said Mr Sasaki.

Rumours about kangaroo sightings started about seven years ago, and television crews and newspapers have set up hidden cameras in the district, but have so far failed to capture an image of a kangaroo.

As a joke, “some people have place up ‘kangaroo crossing’ signs on their roadside properties,” Mr Sasaki said.

Kangaroos are on show at many Japanese zoos and can be imported by individuals.

- AFP

http://www.abc.net.au/news/tales/2010/03/09/2840119.htm

original news creator.

Writer Amanda Bennett recounts her late husband’s battle with cancer, which cost $618,616 over seven years. The case offers a window into the debate over health care.