Hayabusa-2 just landed to collect more asteroid samples.
Repeat Offender
Hayabusa-2, the Japanese space probe that spent the last several months visiting, harvesting, and bombing the crap out of a distant asteroid, just successfully touched down again to collect more samples.
On Wednesday, Hayabusa-2 landed once more on the asteroid Ryugu to collect rock samples from a 10-meter crater that it had blasted out back in April and to snap some pictures, according to Business Insider. The mission on track for a scheduled flight back to Earth at the end of 2019, at which point the samples could help scientists better understand how our solar system came to be.
Incriminating Evidence
When Hayabusa-2 was done collecting samples from Ryugu, it once more took off and snapped some photos of the landing site, according to tweets from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
[PPTD] These images were taken immediately after today’s touchdown (Jul 11) with the ONC-W1. First photo was taken at 10:06:32 JST (on-board time) and you can see the gravel flying upwards. Second shot was at 10:08:53 where the darker region near the centre is due to touchdown. pic.twitter.com/6OhrYShz4D
— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) July 11, 2019
The spacecraft also took a series of before-and-after pictures when it approached then left Ryugu's surface, revealing a clear look at the rubble-filled crater that Hayabusa-2 bombed as well as all of the debris that was kicked up off the surface from the probe's launch.
[PPTD] These images were taken before and after touchdown by the small monitor camera (CAM-H). The first is 4 seconds before touchdown, the second is at touchdown itself and the third is 4 seconds after touchdown. In the third image, you can see the amount of rocks that rise. pic.twitter.com/ssZU5TV3x9
— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) July 11, 2019
As of now, Hayabusa-2 is once more sitting in orbit near Ryugu, where BI reports that it will await the command to fly back to Earth.
READ MORE: A Japanese spacecraft has landed on an asteroid after blasting it with a bullet. The mission will bring back rock samples to Earth. [Business Insider]
More on Hayabusa-2: Here Are The First Photos Japan's Robot Landers Sent Back from an Asteroid
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