Minerology and Crystallography of Some Itokawa Particles Returned by the Hayabusa Mission

JAXA Hayabusa mission success-fully returned particles of the asteroid Itokawa to the earth in 2010. The recovered particles were carefully studied by the preliminary examination (PE) team and the obtained results are providing significant and unique information about the formation and evolution of meteorite parent bodies [1-6]. These particles further revealed that their mineral compositions and oxygen isotopes are close to those of equilibrated LL chon-drites [1,2], which matches with the observation at the orbit [7]. After the PE, JAXA distributed the samples as international AO study and we received 4 new and 3 PE particles. The new samples may contain some exot-ic components that have not been found by the PE study, and are of special interest. We have performed a detailed mineralogical and crystallographic study on these particles and here report the results.