Asteroid Encounters: A New Era in Space Exploration? This past weekend marked a significant milestone for space agencies around the world, with two asteroid flybys in quick succession.
The Japanese Space Agency's (JAXA) Hayabusa2 mission has been at the forefront of this endeavor, sending a spacecraft to gather samples from near Earth asteroids.
Launched in 2014, it successfully retrieved material from Ryugu and then repurposed its remaining fuel for an extended mission that took it to Torifune.