In the immortal words of Will Smith: Welcome to Earth.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has successfully completed its mission to bring a piece of the asteroid Ryugu back to Earth. A capsule carrying the sample detached from the Hyabusa2 spacecraft 130,000 miles from Earth, then landed with help from a parachute and was recovered in a remote area of Australia on Saturday.
According to a report from NPR, this is the first time scientists will be able to examine an asteroid that hasn’t been changed or damaged through the scorching process of entering the Earth’s atmosphere on its own. Since space rocks (like Ryugu) are what eventually become planets, the ability to study this sample could provide clues about how the Earth formed and about creation itself.
The sample is now in a lab in Australia, where scientists have already extracted the gas surrounding the organic matter for study.
This invaluable sample is actually relatively tiny: It weighs about one gram in total. However, size doesn’t always matter. The collection is the result of a six-year mission surrounding Ryugu, a one mile-wide asteroid that orbits the sun between Earth and Mars.
JAXA launched the Hyabusa2 in 2014. It then spent three and a half years orbiting the sun to get into position. It reached Ryugu in 2018, and made two trips to the surface. To return the sample, Hyabusa2 got within 130,000 miles of Earth, and then the capsule was on its own to land in Australia. Hyabusa2 is now on its way to another asteroid. Bon Voyage!