MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th December, 2020) Japan's Hayabusa2 space probe, which recently dropped a capsule containing samples taken from the Ryugu asteroid, delivered 5.4 grams of soil back to Earth, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said on Friday.
"The samples from asteroid Ryugu in the re-entry capsule weigh about 5.4g! This greatly exceeds the the target yield of 0.1g (the amount required for the initial scientific analysis) set during the design of Hayabusa2," JAXA wrote on Twitter.
On Monday, JAXA confirmed that sand particles were inside the capsule that was dropped from the probe. The capsule was delivered from Australia to Japan for detailed analysis earlier in December.
The Hayabusa2 space probe was launched in December 2014 and arrived at Ryugu three and a half years later. After collecting samples from the asteroid in 2019, the probe embarked on a journey back to Earth to release the capsule.
