TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s space agency said its Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully dropped an explosive designed to make a crater on an asteroid and collect its underground samples to find possible clues to the origin of the solar system. ASSOCIATED PRESS The Hayabusa2 spacecraft is shown above on the asteroid Ryugu in this computer graphics image released by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. After dropping the impactor, the spacecraft was to move quickly to the other side of the asteroid to avoid flying shards from the blast. One of its first photos showed the impactor being successfully released and headed to the asteroid. The craft is scheduled to leave the asteroid at the end of 2019 and bring surface fragments and underground samples back to Earth in late 2020.

Source: Huffington Post April 05, 2019 07:18 UTC