Touching the asteroid Ryugu revealed secrets of its surface and changing orbit
On Feb. 21, 2019, we shot an asteroid.
More precisely, the Hayabusa2 spacecraft, built and operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, fired a 5-gram metal projectile into the surface of the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu, a spinning-top-shaped body about 1 kilometer across and some 350 million kilometers from Earth. This projectile disrupted the surface of the asteroid, allowing Hayabusa2 to capture some of the lofted material and tuck it safely away on board. Having departed from Ryugu in November 2019, Hayabusa2 is expected to fly past Earth in late 2020 and release its samples in a reentry capsule for detailed analyses in labs across the world.
Asteroid Ryugu photographed from a distance of about 12 miles (20 kilometers) looks just gray and bland, but a close-up provides m...