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Digging In
Featured on May 5, 2022
Small containers hold samples of the asteroid Ryugu collected by the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft. The craft returned the samples to Earth in December 2020, and they are being dispatched to scientists around the world for analysis this summer. The craft made brief contact with Ryugu, knocking a few fragments of material off the surface. Hayabusa 2 then collected about five grams of those fragments. Early analysis shows that the asteroid is a carbon-rich relic from the early solar system. [T. Yada, M. Abe, T. Okada, et al.]
