Hayabusa-2: Asteroid mission exploring a 'rubble pile'
- The asteroid being explored by the Japanese mission Hayabusa-2 is a "rubble pile" formed when rocks were blasted off a bigger asteroid and came back together again.
- The discovery means that asteroid Ryugu has a parent body out there somewhere, and scientists already have two candidates.
- They have also found a chemical signature across the asteroid that can indicate the presence of water, but this needs confirmation.
- Ryugu's unusual shape is also a sign that it must have been spinning much faster in the past.
- Scientists from the Japanese Space Agency (Jaxa) mission and from Nasa's Osiris-Rex spacecraft, which is exploring a different asteroid called Bennu, have been presenting their latest findings at the 50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in The Woodlands, Texas.
- Bennu and Ryugu have many similarities. They are comparable in size, rich in carbon and shaped like spinning tops. Both missions aim to deliver samples from these objects to Earth.
