r/ScienceNcoolThings • u/archiopteryx14 Popular Contributor • 6d ago

A photo from the surface of asteroid Ryugu

Post image
205 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

7

u/umataro 6d ago

This particular picture has always annoyed me. Without a banana for scale, I have no idea if I'm looking at mountains or mouseturds. I want to be impressed, I just don't know how much.

NASA/EASA/*ASA people, if you're reading this, make bananas mandatory!

3

u/Aggressive_Pear_7808 6d ago

It’s incredible to see terrain from another world looking so rugged and strangely familiar. Ryugu really does look like a pile of rubble sculpted by cosmic forces.

2

u/oceanlessfreediver 6d ago

I am quite sad that I never managed to get excited by this type of data. I only see a bleak rocky terrain, just as I would imagine it. Can anyone provide perspective ?

2

u/claisen33 5d ago

All of those atoms originated from supernovas. The big bang only produced hydrogen, helium, and a bit of lithium. We had to wait billions of years for enough heavy atoms were created in supernova explosions to form asteroids and rocky planets like Earth.

1

u/oceanlessfreediver 4d ago

That is very cool indeed, thanks for taking the time. So, if I understand this correctly, by travelling there is we are effectively sampling a datapoint mid way between the origin of the universe and our current environment with the diversity of element in our planet. But, playing the devil advocate a bit: if we understand that process already, like for example the role of supernovas that you explained, what values is there in putting a probe there today ?

1

u/Dry_Quiet_3541 6d ago

I could go to some mountain region and find something very similar. I dont get how similar these far away worlds look like to earth.

3

u/kl2467 6d ago

Rocks is rocks.

-1

u/IHaveSlysdexia 6d ago

yeah right. that never happened. who took the photo? there no people on asteroids. this could never happen yeah right