A Postcard From the Beginning of Time Third Time Lucky As Probe Lands On Far-Flung Asteroid and Takes Samples From Surface

Sunday Herald › November 29, 2005

Linked as:

Summary

A JAPANESE space probe made history yesterday when it landed on the surface of an asteroid and successfully collected rock samples that could provide clues to the origin of the solar system.

The probe called Hayabusa, meaning "falcon", had suffered two previous failed attempts at landing on the asteroid Itokawa, which is approximately 190 million miles (300m km) from the Earth.

See the full content of this document

Extract

A Postcard From the Beginning of Time Third Time Lucky As Probe Lands On Far-Flung Asteroid and Takes Samples From Surface

Hayabusa fired a 5g metal pellet towards the surface of the 548- metre long asteroid at a speed of 670mph. The material that was "kicked up" by the pellet wa...

See the full content of this document