Effective this issue, I reform this column from a mere mirror of what’s happening in Japan to a somewhat subjective nature of writeup to portray my own rendition of things currently happening here. I intend, of course, to continue maintaining it a sort of data base of things Japanese – just the same. Your feedback is most welcome – that which certainly prompts my eagerness to write.

Now, today’s topic: Our ingenious space probe Hayabusa II a few kilos away from the tiniest planet Ryugu.

Hayabusa II was launched 4 years ago on December 2014, targeting Ryugu, a tiny planet, 900 meters in diameter orbiting around the sun between the earth and Mars, with a mission to land and collect rock specimens. I am of little scientific mind and care less what to do with the specimen, but I sure do have plenty to say about the significance of the project itself and the people behind to have it done. The idea of targeting a piece of “rock” that tiny 300 million kilos away is in itself phenomenal; still more so is the skill to have it land and collect whatever on the rock and bring it home in tact!

It takes a lot of math to work out to keep the probe in position over the distance for four years. It’s more like listening to a virtuoso pianist breezing through some hair-raising Liszt – a mission impossible witnessed done before you. I can’t help voicing my pint of excitement over the mission accomplished and a deep sense of admiration for those who are behind the grand scheme.

Hayabusa has a glorious past as the earlier probe vehicle MUSES-C had brought home some minute particles from the surface of another tiny asteroid Itokawa. The probe’s return journey home was a fantastic drama – the last portion of it burned into the earth’s atmosphere and was shown on the screen of home TV. That scene glued every eyeball in Japan on a grand funeral till the last moment as a splash of fire faded into darkness.

Incidentally, Ryugu is literally “Dragon Palace” believed to be in deep sea inhabited by an Ocean Queen reigning over fish, shells and varies of marine life. A fable has it that a fisherman Urashima happened to visit the palace, enjoyed a brief stay by the courtesy of Otohime, the queen, and one day returned up home with a gift of chest.

Urashima found all in his sight viciously changed with no one to recognize him. In total dismay he opened the gift of chest, out of which dashed the thickest of smoke to choke him. And that smoke turned Urashima a white-haired old man.

Just for curiosity’s sake, I wonder why those bunch of scientists dared choose a sea-bottom palace for the name of the far-out asteroid 300 million kilos away in space. Are they after some trace of marine life up there?

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