Hayabusa 1 was already a pioneering act. But the second Japanese space mission could bring back enough stardust to keep asteroid researchers busy for years. On Sunday, after a six-year mission, the space probe landed successfully in the Australian desert.
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The animated representation shows how the Hayabusa-2 probe releases a small capsule containing asteroid dust, which then lands on earth in a parachute.
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The round trip of the Japanese space probe “Hayabusa2” took six years. Now she has successfully completed her mission to the asteroid Ryugu and sent a sample capsule to Earth. The Japanese space agency Jaxa announced on Sunday morning (local time) that a helicopter had found the small container in the landing area. This is in the desert of the Woomera test site for aerospace in southern Australia, about 460 kilometers north of the city of Adelaide. Researchers expect 4.6 billion year old material from the asteroid Ryugu, which originates from the early days of the solar system, in the container.
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