Asteroid mining is now real and happening

This is one of those space exploration missions that will go down in the annals of history as a major milestone. The Hayabusa 2 probe launched by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has successfully arrived at the asteroid named Ryugu and deployed two rovers to the surface. These rovers will test their environment and gather samples for further analysis.

For those who are unaware, an asteroid is a minor planet that revolves around the sun. They are usually too small to be regular planets and range from a few kilometers across, to a few dozen kilometers in diameter. They are leftover rocks from the time of the formation of our solar system. As a star begins its life, its gravitational field condenses all the dust and matter around it to form larger rocks, which in turn condense and club together to give rise to planets. Asteroids are those rocks that could not bunch together with larger ones and ended up being left over to go around the sun like the planets.

Hayabusa 2 was launched in 2014 and spent all this time making its approach to the tiny asteroid measuring just 1 km in diameter. Two additional rovers are set to be deployed to find out about the magnetic qualities of the asteroid and detect the presence of minerals. Furthermore, the space probe itself will descend to the surface with a small explosive to assess craters and shed further light on the surface and anything below it.