TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe touched down on a distant asteroid on Thursday, the country’s space agency said, on a mission to collect samples that could shed light on the history of the solar system. “The control room received Doppler data showing that the probe appears to have touched down successfully,” Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency spokesman Takayuki Tomobe told AFP. “But Doppler only shows the speed and altitude so we will need definitive […]

TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japanese scientists have succeeded in creating what they called the first-ever artificial crater on an asteroid, a step towards shedding light on how the solar system evolved, the country’s space agency said Thursday. The announcement comes after the Hayabusa2 probe fired an explosive device at the Ryugu asteroid early this month to blast a crater in the surface and scoop up material, aiming to reveal more about the origins of life […]

by Miwa SUZUKI TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — A Japanese probe on Friday launched an explosive device at an asteroid, aiming to blast a crater in the surface and scoop up material that could shed light on how the solar system evolved. The explosive mission is the riskiest yet attempted by the Japanese space agency’s Hayabusa2 probe that aims to reveal more about the origins of life on Earth. Hayabusa2 released the so-called “small carry-on impactor” […]