Hayabusa 2 lands on an asteroid, collects samples and flies off to space

Exploring space has never been for the faint-hearted. Mankind as launched satellites to observe all the planets and even landed operable rovers on Mars, in addition to sending people to the moon. While most astronomers focus on planets and their moons, there are some that are interested in asteroids. These space rocks could be a few millimeters in size to several kilometers and contain matter leftover from the time of the birth of the solar system. Exploring asteroids could improve our understanding of how things were during the birth of our planet. Exploring one such asteroid is exactly what the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has done.

The Hayabusa 2 was launched in 2014 and landed on the asteroid Ryugu on 21st February. The probe fired a 5g bullet made of tantalum into the surface of the rock in order to collect samples. Later on, it flew off into space for its return journey to earth. This asteroid sampling mission was preceded by the Hayabusa, which collected samples from another asteroid named Itokawa and returned home with them on June 2010. Ryugu is a near-earth asteroid that scientists have identified as being carbon-rich (C-Type). Studying these primordial rocks would be greatly helpful in understanding how life originated on earth. One of the most popular theories for the origin of life on our planet is by an asteroid impact.

Asteroids like these were formed billions of years ago, but could not become a planet or a moon. Studying them would shed light on the nature of the early solar system.