This is what it looked like in space (approximately), a bit more than two years ago, when Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft collected a sample of asteroid Ryugu.
After the collection, the satellite sent the sample back toward Earth, and a couple of weeks ago it successfully flamed through Earth's atmosphere and landed in Australia. Just a couple of days ago, scientists opened up the sample canister, and found that they had a lot of asteroid chunks.
They wanted about a tenth of a gram. They got more than 5 grams.
That's a success.
Here's what asteroid material looks like:
I just found out that the satellite is going to go and visit two more asteroids, from the article that I got the first picture from:
"The work is not over for Hayabusa2, which will now begin an extended mission targeting two new asteroids. It will complete a series of orbits around the sun for around six years before approaching the first of the asteroids, named 2001 CC21, in July 2026. The probe will not get as close as it did to Ryugu, but scientists hope it will be able to photograph CC21 and that the fly-by will help develop knowledge about how to protect Earth against asteroid impact.
Hayabusa2 will then head towards its main target, 1998 KY26, a ball-shaped asteroid with a diameter of just 30 metres. When the probe arrives at the asteroid in July 2031, it will be approximately 300 million kilometres from Earth. It will observe and photograph the asteroid, no easy task given that it is spinning rapidly, rotating on its axis about every 10 minutes."
Meanwhile, back on Earth, now we can find out what exactly asteroid chunks are made of.
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