Development of Nondestructive Elemental Analysis System for Hayabusa2 Samples Using Muonic X-rays

Takahito Osawa, Shunsaku Nagasawa, Kazuhiko Ninomiya, Tadayuki Takahashi, Tomoki Nakamura, Taiga Wada, Akihiro Taniguchi, Izumi Umegaki, Kenya M. Kubo, Kentaro Terada, I. Huan Chiu, Shinichiro Takeda, Miho Katsuragawa, Takahiro Minami, Shin Watanabe, Toshiyuki Azuma, Kazumi Mizumoto, Go Yoshida, Soshi Takeshita, Motonobu TampoKoichiro Shimomura, Yasuhiro Miyake

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The concentrations of carbon and other major elements in asteroid samples provide very important information on the birth of life on the Earth and the solar-system evolution. Elemental analysis using muonic X-rays is one of the best analytical methods to determine the elemental composition of solid materials and, notably, is the only method to determine the concentration of light elements in bulk samples in a nondestructive manner. We developed a new analysis system using muonic X-rays to measure the concentrations of carbon and other major elements in precious and expectedly tiny samples recovered from the asteroid Ryugu by spacecraft Hayabusa2. Here we report the development process of the system in 4 stages and their system configurations, The analysis system is composed of a stainless-steel analysis chamber, an acrylic glovebox for manipulating asteroid samples in a clean environment, and Ge semiconductor detectors arranged to surround the analysis chamber. The performance of the analysis system, including the background level, which is crucial for the measurement, was greatly improved from the first stage to the later ones. Our feasibility study showed that the latest model of our muonic X-ray analysis system is capable of determining the carbon concentration in Hayabusa2’s sample model with an uncertainty of less than 10% in a 6 day measurement.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)699-711
Number of pages13
JournalACS Earth and Space Chemistry
Volume7
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023 Apr 20

Keywords

  • Hayabusa2
  • J-PARC
  • Ryugu
  • elemental analysis
  • muonic X-ray
  • planetary science
  • solar abundance

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