Japan’s Hayabusa2 asteroid probe has been in orbit around the space rock known as Ryugu for months now, and in February it attempted its most complicated maneuver yet. The spacecraft fired a projectile into the surface of the asteroid and snagged some samples which it will eventually attempt to deliver to Earth, but it mission …
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission has been steadily progressing since the spacecraft arrived at the diamond-shaped space rock known as Bennu a few months back, but not everything has gone completely to plan. The rock ended up being far more, well, dirty than NASA originally expected. Bennu’s surface is absolutely packed with debris, posing a challenge for …
When you imagine an asteroid cruising through the solar system you probably think of it as a static object, not doing much beyond speeding along in a straight line and eventually running into something. The reality can be much different and, as a new image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows, asteroids sometimes have self-destructive …
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft first arrived at the large space rock known as Bennu late last year, and it’s spent the first few months of 2019 observing its new space companion and teaching NASA more about the rock’s surface. Unfortunately for NASA engineers, the asteroid’s surface is nothing like what they assumed it would be, and …
Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft has been hanging around the asteroid known as Ryugu for several months now. It first arrived in late 2018 and, in February, fired a projectile into it surface to collect a sample from the rock. It still has plenty of work to do but things are moving along nicely. Now, after learning …
Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft is doing some big things during its time at the asteroid known as Ryugu. JAXA, Japan’s space program, arrived at the space rock last year and, after much planning, fired a projectile into its surface late last month to collect some samples of it surface. Now, JAXA is planning for an even …
One of the strangest astronomy stories of the past few years is the sudden appearance of what scientists believe is the first interstellar object ever to be detected in our solar system. The cigar-shaped space rock known as Oumuamua puzzled scientists who attempted to explain what it was and where it may have originated, and …
NASA is always keeping an eye on space rocks that get anywhere near Earth, and 2019 has been a relatively calm year in terms of close passes. A recently discovered asteroid is going to make a not-super-close pass of Earth later this week, and while it doesn’t pose much of a threat to our planet …
It was just a couple of weeks ago that the Japan space program, JAXA, announced that its Hayabusa2 probe had successfully completed a maneuver never before attempted in space. The spacecraft dipped down, close to the surface of the asteroid known as Ryugu, fired a projectile at its surface, snatched some sample material, and then …
Japan’s space program JAXA has had a very eventful 24 hours. The group’s Hayabusa2 asteroid probe, which arrived at its target Ryugu last year, performed its most challenging maneuver yet by leaving its orbit around the rock and touching down on its surface for just a moment. But that’s not all it did. The plan …
