asteroids, hayabusa2, new discoveries, outer space, ryugu

Scientists Release First Analysis of Rocks Plucked From Speeding Asteroid

After a six-year journey, a plucky spacecraft called Hayabusa2 zinged back into Earth’s atmosphere in late 2020 and landed deep in the Australian outback. When researchers from the Japanese space agency JAXA opened it, they found its precious payload sealed and intact: a handful of dirt that Hayabusa2 managed to scoop off the surface of ...

Troy Oakes

The Ryugu asteroid in space.

Study Finds Meteoric Evidence for a Previously Unknown Asteroid

A Southwest Research Institute-led team of scientists has identified a potentially new meteorite parent asteroid by studying a small shard of a meteorite that arrived on Earth a dozen years ago. The composition of a piece of the meteorite Almahata Sitta (AhS) indicates that its parent body was an asteroid roughly the size of Ceres, ...

Troy Oakes

An asteroid approaching Earth.

Asteroid Ryugu Dust Delivered to Earth; NASA Astrobiologists Prepare to Probe It

On Dec. 6 local time (Dec. 5 in the United States), Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 dropped a capsule to the ground in the Australian Outback from about 120 miles (or 200 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. Inside that capsule is some of the most precious cargo in the solar system: dust that the spacecraft collected earlier this year ...

Troy Oakes

Artist's concept of a NASA spacecraft speeding toward a rendezvous with the Ryugu asteroid.