The troubled Hayabusa space probe has become the first spacecraft to bring material from an asteroid back to Earth, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has announced.
Although Hayabusa's capsule was retrieved earlier this year, it wasn't clear whether the dust it contained came from the asteroid it landed on in 2005. Now an analysis by JAXA has shown that the dust's composition is extra-terrestrial, even containing a mineral not found on the Earth's surface.
The mineral not found on Earth's surface sounds fascinating! To read the rest of the article, click here.