- Hayabusa-2, a Japanese spacecraft, have launched an explosive device to create an artificial crater on an asteroid known as Ryugu.
- If impact crater is created successfully, the probe will later return to gather samples from the gouged depression.
- Scientists believe these samples could help them better understand how Earth and the other planets were formed in the early Solar System.
- The Small Carry-on Impactor (SCI), the explosive device onboard spacecraft, was released from Hayabusa-2 on April 5, 2019. It was a 14kg conical container, packed with plastic explosive intended to punch a 10m-wide hole in the asteroid.
- Hayabusa2 moved smartly away from the area to avoid being damaged by debris from the explosion or colliding with Ryugu.
- Asteroid Ryugu belongs to a particularly primitive type of space rock known as a C-type asteroid. It’s a relic left over from the early days of our Solar System, and therefore records the conditions and chemistry of that time – some 4.5 billion years ago. (BBC)
