Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft released a small
rover on Thursday that will land on the surface
of an asteroid as part its final mission before
heading back to Earth, Japan’s space agency said.
The Minerva-II2 rover began a slow descent
to the asteroid Ryugu, the Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency, or JAXA, said.
Hayabusa2 arrived in the area in June 2018. It
has collected soil samples and other data from
the asteroid 300 million kilometers (180 million
miles) from Earth in a series of missions aimed at
obtaining clues to the origin of the solar system.
The spacecraft released the rover, which
resembles a circular cookie tin, from about 1
kilometer (0.6 mile) above the asteroid’s surface.
It will collect data and images of the rover as
it descends over the next few days to Ryugu
named after a dragon castle in a Japanese folk
tale to research the asteroid’s gravity.
It is the last mission for the hugely popular
spacecraft, whose name means falcon.
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