Welcome

Welcome to the SPACE Laboratory at ISAS! We are planetary scientists, geologists, and remote sensing experts.

As of now, we are looking for new graduate students and postdocs. Interested candidates with the departmental postdoctoral fellowship programs or ISAS graduate studies should consider applying, especially if research interests span multiple faculty. [Contact]

News

Ishizaki joins our group. [Link] [2024/10/01]

Hirata won the Excellence Award in IGPEES Final Examination 2024. [Link] [2024/08/09]

Sugahara is featured in the Kawaijuku Mirai Book for high school and junior high school students. [Link] [2024/08/06]

Tabata, Imura and Sato join our group. [Link] [2024/04/08]

Sugimoto was chosen to participate in the intern program of Lunar and Planetary Institute. [Link] [2024/02/28]

Hyodo and Dr. Ozaki won the first prize in S-Booster. [LINK]

The movie on the project they proposed can be seen here. [LINK] [2023/11/16]

Suzuki was adopted as a JSPS Postdoctoral Researcher. [Link] [2023/09/27]

Usui posted an article on the day of O-REx's Sample Return Capsule reentry (September 24, 2023), commenting on the sister sample return missions of OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa 2 (in Japanese). [Link] [2023/09/25]

Sugahara received the Encouragement Award for young scientists from the Geochemical Society of Japan for her research about "Evolution of organic molecules in the universe and the delivery of precursors of life" and gave the Award lecture at the 70th Annual meeting of the society. [LINK] [2023/09/22]

Our previous Postdoctoral scholar Dr. Koike (present : Hiroshima Univ.) also received the same award together for her research about "An in-situ chronological study of differentiated meteorites to understand the planetary evolution". [LINK] [2023/09/22]

Hirata receives JpGU 2023 Outstanding Student Presentation Award. [Link] [2023/07/10]

Suzuki and Sugimoto join our group. [Link] [2023/04/03]

Hirata receives JpGU 2022 Outstanding Student Presentation Award. [Jp][En] [2022/09/29]

Hyodo receives prestigious Young Scientist Award (2021) from the Japanese Society for Planetary Sciences. [LINK]

Also an interview was published in ISAS website. [LINK] [2022/09/07]

Usui talks about Hayabusa2 on the NHK TV program "Science Zero". Time: 23:30-24:00 on July 17 & 24. [LINK]

Usui is one of 16 scientists selected to join a new research group for the NASA/ESA Mars Sample Return Program [Link] [2022/06/17]

Usui appears on the TBS radio to talk about Hayabusa2. [TBS Radio] [Spotify] [2021/12/10]

Usui delivered a fraction of Ryugu sample to Johnson Space Center, NASA on November 30. [ISAS Weekly] [Dr. Zurbuchen's Twitter] [NASA's Feature]

Shohei Aoki has been selected for the International Mars Ice Mapper Measurement Definition Team (MIM-MDT) to help support international efforts to plan potential human exploration of Mars [Link] [2021/11/12]

Usui, Sugahara, Fukai, and the ISAS curation team have completed the initial description of the first batch of Ryugu samples and delivered it to the Hayabusa-2 sample analysis teams. Usui, Sugahara, and Fukai will also join the sample analysis teams. [JP] [2021/06/17]

"Why explore the moons of Mars?" Ryuki Hyodo shares the science behind JAXA's upcoming MMX mission to the Martian moons at the ISAS webpage. [JP] [EN] [2021/04/28]

Ryuki's paper (Hyodo et al. 2019 Sci. Rep) is featured in Nature. Ryuki and Tomo Usui comment on the significance of Phobos sample return. [Link][2020/07/31]

Tomo Usui comments on Martian moons' exploration in the New York Times. [Link][2020/07/26]

Sugahara is featured in JSPS(LEADER) HP. [Link][2020/07/26]

Kanamaru, Sakatani, Matsuoka, and Noguchi’s co-authored paper ‘Sample collection from asteroid (162173) Ryugu by Hayabusa2: Implications for surface evolution’ is published in Science. [Link][2020/05/08]

Sakatani, Matsuoka, and Noguchi’s co-authored paper ‘Highly porous nature of a primitive asteroid revealed by thermal imaging’ is published in Nature. [Link][2020/03/17]

The M2 challenge project has been selected for “the Student Project Support 2019” of UTokyo Foundation. [Twitter][2020/03/18]

Hyodo's paper & MMX is featured on cosmos blog. [Link][2020/02/06]

Hyodo's paper is featured on Yahoo website. [Link][2020/01/20]

MMX is featured in NHK's Science Zero (11:30pm-12:00am, November 10). Tomo Usui and Ryuki Hyodo comment on the scientific significance of MMX. [Link][2019/11/3]

Sugahara, H. is featured in ISAS newsletter. [Link][2019/10/30]

Moon to Mars Challenge webpage launched! [facebook] [twitter][2019/10/23]

Usui's co-authored paper is featured in ISAS's Cosmos blog. [Link] [2019/9/11]

MMX mission is featured in the Mainichi newspaper (September 5th, 2019). Usui comments on the scientific significance of MMX. [Link] [2019/9/05]

Usui, T. is featured in ISAS newsletter. [Link] [2019/6/26]

Noguchi, R. is selected as a member of the 61st Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition. [Link] [2019/6/21]

Usui, T., Sakatani, N., Noguchi, R., Matsuoka, M., Uemura, C., Kajitani, I. and Takano, A. join the JpGU Meeting 2019(Chiba, Japan). [Link] Noguchi, R. presides over the planetary volcanology session. [Link] [gallery] Usui T. presents the Japanese Mars Exploration. [Link] [2019/5/26-30]

Usui T. presents the Japanese Mars Exploration Program at the American School in Japan @asij Space Club. [Link] [2019/5/21]

Usui, T., Sakatani, N., Noguchi, R., and Matsuoka, M. join the 50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference(Woodlands, Texas, USA). [Link] [gallery] [2019/3/18-22]

The 1st International Workshop for Aquaplanetology is held at ELSI [Link] [2019/3/4-6]

The 1st International Winter School for Aquaplanetology is held at Koyasan University [Link] [2019/2/28--3/3]

The 20th Symposium on Planetary Sciences is held at Tohoku University, Japan [Link] [2019/2/18-21]

Usui joins a conference for the international space exploration [Link] [2019/3/12]

Usui gives a public talk about the exploration on Mars [Link] [2019/3/1]

Sakatani and Shimaki reported results of TIR on Hayabusa2 in TherMoPS III, Hungary [Link] [gallery] [2019/2/25]

Highlights

Sugahara is featured in JST News. [Link] [2024/11/01]

Sugimoto is featured in ISAS GATE. [Link] [2024/10/31]

Suzuki's new article on Mercury's Mg exosphere revealed by BepiColombo's 2nd and 3rd Mercury swing-bys is published in JGR: planets. [Link] [2024/10/16]

Tabata's new article on iron redox geochemistry in paleo-Gale lake is published in GCA. [Link] [2024/08/06]

Sugahara's new paper about the adsorption of ammonia and its nitrogen K-edge XANES spectrum and 15N/14N-nitrogen isotopic fractionation is published in Analytical Sciences. [LINK] [2024/02/05]

Fukai's new article on the curation protocol related to the MMX mission is published in Meteoritics & Planetary Science. [LINK] [2024/01/11]

An article written by Sugahara et al. about planetary protection and contamination control at JAXA is posted on “thoughts related to the mission” in the ISAS website. [LINK: Japanese only] [2024/01/10]

Hirata's new article on the elemental composition model of Phobos for MMX/MEGANE observations is published in Icarus. [LINK] [2023/11/24]

Suzuki's new article on the relation between exospheric distribution and surface abundance on Mercury is published in EPSL. [LINK] [2023/11/20]

Hirata is featured in ISAS GATE. [Link] [2023/09/15]

Usui talks about MMX at UCLA SPACE Institute and Meteoritical Society Symposium. [Video] [2023/08/16]

Kajitani's article on Martian meteorite is published in EPSL. [Link]

Tomo Usui comments on an MMX article published online in PNAS. [Link]

Masunaga's new article is featured in ISAS GATE. [Jp] [En] [2023/02/01]

Usui and Fukai's work on Hyabusa2 samples published in Science. [Link] [Press Release] [2022/06/13]

Usui and Fukai's work on Hyabusa2 samples published in Proceedings of The Japan Academy. [Link] [Press Release] [2022/06/13]

Hyodo's new article is featured in ISAS GATE [Jp] [En] [2022/04/11]

Shoji's new article is featured in ISAS GATE [Jp] [En] [2022/02/03]

Hyodo's article "Transport of impact ejecta from Mars to its moons as a means to reveal Martian history" on Sci. Rep. is published online. [Link] [2020/01/06]

Noguchi's article on Yuseijin is published online. [2019/6/3] [Link]

Hayabusa2 initial science reports (Sakatani, N., Noguchi, R., Matsuoka, M., and Shimaki, Y. are participated in as coauthors) are published in the Science Magazine [Publications] [2019/3/20]

Usui's article on geology and mineralogy of water on Mars is published Astrobiology. [Link] [2019/3/11]

Noguchi and Shimaki's web article on nomenclature of Ryugu is now available. [2019/1/21] [Link]

Noguchi's paper on an analog experiment for rootless eruption is published in Earth, Planets and Space. [2018/12/27] [Link]