Check out the first pics of the asteroid crater made by a Japanese spacecraft
In the first week of April, a Japanese spacecraft blasted a small crater into an asteroid more than 180 million miles from Earth — and now we’ve finally got the first images of its explosive handy work. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which operates the excavating spacecraft, released before and after pictures of the new crater site, showing a slight indentation in the rock that wasn’t there before.
The new crater is the product of Hayabusa2, which has been hanging out around an asteroid named Ryugu since June of 2018. Hayabusa2 is supposed to return samples of Ryugu back to Earth, and so far, the spacecraft has successfully completed part of this mission. On February 21st, the spacecraft moved in close to Ryugu and shot a...