At the end of 2020, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Hayabusa-2 spacecraft brought rock samples back to the Earth from the asteroid Ryugu. The Hayabusa2 was launched when I was a PhD student. I was watching the rocket launch via a live feed from the conference hall during an international conference on meteorite science. After that, I worked for two years as a researcher in the return sample curation group of JAXA. Our laboratory at Hokkaido University was the first in the world to conduct chemical analysis of samples from the asteroid Ryugu brought back by the spacecraft. Based on this experience, we are also participating in a project to analyze samples brought back from the asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.

My academic performance in college was not good at all. However, when I joined a laboratory in my senior year of college and began observing and analyzing meteorites, I felt a completely different response to the classroom learning I had done as an undergraduate. From that point on, I was strongly absorbed in the world of research. I still strongly remember the first academic conference I attended during my master’s program. Researchers spent hours discussing the environment at the time of the formation of the solar system. I was impressed that such a world existed in this world.

Fishing and cooking!