spacecraft Hayabusa tagged posts

This is the cross section area of the particle collected from the asteroid Itokawa using Hayabusa spacecraft.
Credit: Osaka University

Japanese research group clarifies the chronology of near-Earth asteroid 25143 Itokawa. Scientists have closely examined particles collected from the asteroid Itokawa by the spacecraft Hayabusa, finding that the parent body of Itokawa was formed about 4.6 billion years ago when the solar system was born and that it was destroyed by a collision with another asteroid about 1.5 billion years ago.

Understanding the origin and time evolution of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) is an issue of scientific interest and practical importance because they are potentially hazardous to the Earth...