Three tiny fragments were collected by a Japanese spacecraft in 2005 from a 4.2-billion-year-old asteroid known as Itokawa. Smaller than the diameter of a hair, these components contain information that could help prevent an asteroid colliding with Earth. Itokawa, a rubble-pile asteroid (created when “solid asteroids collide and the resulting fragments assemble into new structures”), is almost as old as the solar system itself. Held together by a gravitational pull between its composing elements (dust, pebbles, rocks and a void), rubble-pile asteroids are “giant space cushions,” that are good at absorbing shock. “We can get big stories like that out of [something] very, very small… Every grain has its own story to tell.” Read more at The Guardian.

Source: CNN January 26, 2023 15:26 UTC