Japan's Asteroid Probe Is Finally Returning to Earth With Its Precious Cargo gizmodo.com
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AkihabaraBot
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4 years, 5 months ago
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Science & Technology
AkihabaraBot
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4 years, 5 months ago
in
Science & Technology
Beginning tomorrow, the overachieving spacecraft will leave Ryugu and head back to Earth, bringing—hopefully—its asteroid samples along with it.
After a year and a half of exploratory work around the Ryugu asteroid, the time has finally come for JAXA’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft to return home.
The Ryugu asteroid.
Image : JAXAAlong for the ride will be the all-important asteroid samples.
In addition, Hayabusa2 took numerous photos of the asteroid and deployed several robotic probes to the surface, among other tasks.