On March 3, 2016, "the Research Meeting on the Geometric modeling of the Asteroid" was held at UoA.

The purpose of this meeting was reviewing research achievements related to the establishment methods for creating a high-precision geometric models of asteroids, which is one of the issues in the UoA's ongoing projects funded by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (Fundamental Research B). Senior Associate Professor Naru Hirata (*) from ARC-Space directed the meeting.

Researchers from the UoA, JAXA, Waseda University, Gunma University, and the University of Tokyo gathered for the research meeting. There, each university made a presentation about how they will find out the shape of the asteroid from images, etc. that Hayabusa 2 acquires.

Hayabusa 2 (*3) was launched in 2014. It should arrive at the asteroid 162173 Ryugu in 2018. The results of this meeting and the UoA's research will be used to create a geometric model of the asteroid "Ryugu" (*2) that will be useful for both engineering and science.

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* Senior Associate Professor Naru Hirata