Japan’s Breakthrough Asteroid Mission Is Finally Returning Home

The United States, Japan, China, Russia, India, are all making huge headway in the race to become the premier Space Research Nation...

Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft is currently traveling millions of miles back to Earth with new samples of the RYUGU asteroid.

Information from "SEEKER" (Note that it has some 4.59 million subscribers:
In 2014, the spacecraft launched from the Tanegashima Space Center while aboard the H2A rocket. Its mission? To study and sample a C-type asteroid. Ryugu is one of the smallest objects ever visited by a spacecraft, but it’s worth going to because C-type asteroids are some of the most ancient objects in our solar system.

Scientists speculate that they were created during the violent beginnings of our solar system’s formation and could also carry the building blocks of life. These kinds of asteroids, though, are quite carbon-rich, causing coal-black surfaces that actually make it very difficult to see and study from Earth. So, when Hayabusa2 arrived at Ryugu in 2018, it was quite prepared to study the asteroid like never before.

This mission included, not only the main spacecraft with remote sensing instruments, but also a lander, small rovers, a sampling system, AND an impactor to create a small crater on the surface.

Note that we are not alone in exploring space and which ever country dominates our MOON and then MARS, will dominate the Earth... IMHO, China is out to reach that goal with many contenders following... Do we need a Space Force? Think About it... I did for about a micro second and I believe it is absolutely necessary... How about you?
Kerry
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