The return to Earth of the Japanese space probe Hayanusa might mean that we’re closer to learning about the origins of our Universe.

It also might mean that we’re closer to defending ourselves against a rogue asteroid, Armageddon-style.

Earlier this week, Hayanusa (which means ‘Falcon’) tore its way through the atmosphere before landing in the Australian outback, where it was quickly collected by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) for testing. Hayanusa had been attached to the asteroid Itokawa since 2005. It is expected to have brought back dust samples unlike any that have ever been seen firsthand before.

What can we learn from those dust samples? For starters, it could tell astronomers a great deal about the formation of our solar system. And according to one NASA scientist, better understanding the composition of asteroids could lead to what is known as a ‘planetary defense plan.’ Basically that means that in the event that an asteroid is on a dangerous collision path with Earth, we would better know what could be done to destroy (or derail) it.

I’ll bet the dinosaurs wish they’d had a planetary defense plan.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 17th, 2010 at 10:34 am and is filed under Notes from Dom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.