A pair of Japanese rovers have given us our first ever video images from the surface of a moving asteroid, just one result from this ground-breaking mission. Japan’s space agency JAXA released the 15-frame clip and a bunch of photographs from the surface of the Ryugu asteroid this week on its website. After analysing the surface of the space rock, the ship sent its onboard rovers MINERVA-II1 to the surface on September 22, with both 1A and 1B making the trip safely. The compact robotic rovers are currently moving across the surface with their signature hop, which can reach as high as 15 metres across the asteroid and keep the rovers airborne for as long as 15 minutes. The spacecraft will deploy a device that will explode in the atmosphere over the asteroid and shoot a copper missile into the space rock.

Source: Forbes September 29, 2018 15:22 UTC