Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe is blasting a hole in an asteroid tonight (and that’s awesome)

It’s a big day for space: launches, tests, orbits, and now a distant probe is going to shoot an asteroid with its space gun and make a new crater to play in. It’s Hayabusa 2, Japan’s ambitious and so far highly successful sample return mission to an object called Ryugu. Launched in 2014, Hayabusa 2 has been in the region of Ryugu for several months, carrying out a series of investigations.

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