Daring Japanese mission reaches unexplored asteroid Ryugu
After travelling for three-and-a-half years, the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa-2 this week makes its final approach to the asteroid Ryugu. The probe will release landers on the space rock's surface later this year, bring back a precious sample to terrestrial labs in 2020, and it is already giving planetary scientists their closest-ever view of a mysterious kind of asteroid. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) last week released grainy pictures from a distance of around 300 km away, revealing that Ryugu — an asteroid of a common but little-studied type — looks similar to a spinning top.
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