Japanese Asteroid Mission Touches Down on Ryugu, Collects Sample

Hayabusa2’s encounters with asteroid Ryugu have been delightfully action-packed. In February, the Japanese spacecraft collected its first sample by swooping close and firing a bullet into the asteroid’s surface to stir up material it then snagged with a horn-shaped collector. Then, in April, it shot a much larger impactor into Ryugu, creating an artificial crater so it could examine the material churned up from beneath the surface. On Thursday, Hayabusa2 returned to the scene of the crime and fired a second bullet, collecting material from its newly made crater.