On June 27, 2018, the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 arrived at asteroid 162173 Ryugu after a 3.5-year journey through space. The probe had launched from Earth on December 3, 2014, carrying instruments designed to collect pristine samples from the 900-meter-wide asteroid and return them to laboratories. This moment marked the beginning of an ambitious 18-month survey mission that would transform our understanding of how the solar system formed.

Hayabusa2 was the successor to Japan's groundbreaking Hayabusa mission, which had returned the first-ever asteroid samples to Earth in June 2010. Building on that success, the new probe was equipped with more advanced sampling equipment, including a small rover and a kinetic impact device capable of blasting material from beneath Ryugu's surface. Scientists chose Ryugu because it is a C-type asteroid, rich in organic compounds and water, believed to preserve materials from the early solar system. The asteroid orbits Earth every 1.3 years and poses no threat to our planet.

During its time at Ryugu, Hayabusa2 conducted detailed surface mapping and collected samples through two separate landing operations. The spacecraft also deployed two small rovers that crawled across the asteroid's rocky surface, and in July 2019 it detonated a copper projectile to excavate material from below the asteroid's crust, gathering samples never exposed to space weathering. On December 5, 2020, Hayabusa2 returned its precious cargo to Earth: 5.4 grams of material that scientists are still analyzing to answer fundamental questions about the origins of life and the composition of our cosmic neighborhood. The mission's success paved the way for expanded exploration, with Hayabusa2's trajectory adjusted in 2019 to intercept another asteroid, 1998 KY26, by 2031.