SoylentNews

takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Hayabusa2 lands on an asteroid and sends back amazing pictures to prove it [techcrunch.com]

Japan's Hayabusa2 mission [hayabusa2.jaxa.jp] to the asteroid Ryugu is an ambitious one to begin with, and the team recently made the decision to up the stakes with a second touchdown on the space rock's surface. Not only did all go as planned, but we now have the best shots of an asteroid's surface ever to be sent back to Earth.

[...] There was no guarantee this would happen, the JAXA team running the Hayabusa2 mission noted in a recent blog post. Any number of things could have resulted in a second touchdown being either too risky or not worth the trouble. Fortunately they concluded that the risk was acceptable and that this would be an important feat in more ways than one.

[...] In a brief update, JAXA provided a handful of pictures of the successful touchdown: 4 seconds before, the moment of impact, and 4 seconds after. It doesn't stay for long, more bounces off the surface than "lands."

Image bulletin [hayabusa2.jaxa.jp].

162173 Ryugu [wikipedia.org].

Related: Hayabusa2 Reaches Asteroid 162173 Ryugu [soylentnews.org]
Hayabusa2 Spacecraft Faces Difficulties in Landing and Collecting a Sample from an Asteroid [soylentnews.org]

Original Submission