The Hitomi satellite was built in Japan to study black holes from outside the of the Earth's atmosphere. That vehicle has been playing a game of hide-and-seek with controllers, as the signal from the craft has disappeared and reappeared over the course of its short mission.
Hitomi, also known as Astro-H, was launched on Feb 7 on a three-year mission to search for black holes, one of the most mysterious classes of objects in the known Universe. Supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies were to be studied by the craft, along with the action of dark matter on clusters of these stellar families. Physical laws affecting black holes, as well as super-dense neutron stars, might also be detailed by the observatory, if its controllers are able to re-establish contact with the vehicle.
However, the U.S. Joint Space Operations Center has announced the detection of debris in the area of space where the observatory is supposed to be found. Researchers there believe the vehicle may have broken apart into at least five pieces.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is using a range of observatories and detectors to try to deduce what happened to the craft, which detected two weak signals. So far, the space agency has been unable to determine the ultimate fate of the space-borne observatory.
"While the cause of communication anomaly is under investigation, JAXA received short signal from the satellite, and is working for recovery. Under this circumstance, JAXA set up emergency headquarters, headed by the President, for recovery and investigation," JAXA officials wrote in a press release.
The X-ray micro-calorimeter aboard the vehicle was designed to observe X-rays from space in the greatest detail ever available in a spacecraft. The observatory was designed to use multiple instruments simultaneously, recording data from single events in multiple wavelengths of electromagnetic energy. If Hitomi is truly destroyed, the event would mark a significant loss to astronomers.
"JAXA is observing the objects, using a radar located at the Kamisaibara Space Guard Center (KSGC) and telescopes at the Bisei Space Guard Center (BSGC) owned by the Japan Space Forum. Up to now, the telescopes at BSGC detected two objects around the satellite's original orbit, while the radar at KSGC identified one of them," JAXA officials announced.
The possibly-shattered spacecraft was a joint project of the Japanese space agency and NASA. One of the most advanced observations planned for Hitomi was to determine if time itself is wrapped just outside black holes. Only recently has technology advanced enough to directly measure the warping of space time, testing one of the strangest predictions of famed physicist Albert Einstein.
Other spacecraft have appeared to be lost early in their missions, before going on to perform years of useful scientific research. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), designed by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) lost contact with the Earth after it was launched in 1995. Control was later regained, and the vehicle has gone on to record data for 20 years, 10 times longer than its original goal.
If Hitomi is lost, the destruction of the observatory will be a significant loss for astronomers, astrophysicists, and other researchers worldwide.
