Snapping a series of pictures that revealed the asteroid’s shape. The asteroid of choice was 162173 Ryugu, or Ryugu for short. In Japanese it refers to a magical, underwater Dragon Palace.
Microscope image of one of the small fragments of asteroid 162173 Ryugu studied by scientists at the Advanced Photon Source. This fragment is roughly 400 microns in diameter, or about the width of ...
The 900m-wide space rock known formally as 162173 Ryugu belongs to a particularly primitive type of asteroid. It is thought to be a relic left over from the early days of our Solar System ...
Scientists used sterilized tools, themselves stored under nitrogen. Despite their best efforts, the team discovered "rods and filaments of organic matter, which are interpreted as filamentous ...