Six months after Hayabusa2 first landed on the asteroid Ryugu, we finally get to see the first set of data that it has collected from the floating rock.
Hayabusa2 is one of two missions currently visiting and attempting to collect samples from asteroids near the Earth. Its initial observations have already revealed a Ryugu that differed from expectations: rather than a wet mass of differently shaped rocks, it’s a spinning pile of uniform rubble with less water than expected.
These new insights will help scientists write this object’s history, which now seems to include a period of rapid rotation and a potentially chaotic birth from a parent body.
(Image credit: Seiji Sugita et al/Science 2019)