“In a streak of light across the night sky, samples collected from a distant asteroid arrived on Earth on Sunday after being dropped off by Japanese space probe Hayabusa2. Scientists hope the precious samples, which are expected to amount to no more than 0.1 grams of material, could help shed light on the origin of life and the formation of the universe” ScienceAlert reports.
“The capsule carrying samples entered the atmosphere just before 2:30 am Japan time (1730 GMT), creating a shooting-star-like fireball as it entered Earth’s atmosphere. ‘Six years and it has finally come back to Earth,’ an official narrating a live broadcast of the arrival said, as images showed officials from Japan’s space agency JAXA cheering and pumping their fists in excitement. The capsule separated from Hayabusa2 on Saturday, when the refrigerator-sized space probe that launched into space in 2014 was 220,000 kilometres (136,702 miles) away from Earth. It landed in the southern Australian desert, where it will be recovered from an area spanning some 39 square miles with search crews guided by beacons emitted as the capsule descended.”