Motoo Ito, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
Hayabusa2 was a sample-return mission to the carbonaceous asteroid Ryugu, led by JAXA. In December 2020, the spacecraft successfully returned approximately 5.4 grams of asteroid samples to Earth, collected from two distinct locations on Ryugu. Since then, researchers around the world have made significant progress in studying Ryugu grains for their chemistry, mineralogy, petrology, organics, and space-weathering effects. This presentation will summarize key discoveries arising from those studies, addressing fundamental questions about Ryugu.
About the presenter
Motoo Ito is an isotope cosmochemist and a principal researcher at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. His expertise lies in the analysis of extraterrestrial materials using SIMS/NanoSIMS, and he has developed a seamless multi-beam method that combines X-rays, electron beams, and ion beams. He serves as the leader of the Phase 2 curation team for the Hayabusa2 planetary exploration mission and is a member of the steering committee of the Small Bodies Assessment Group.