Japan’s Small is Beautiful Spacecraft Finds a 1 km Asteroid

After a three-and-a-half year voyage deep into the asteroid belt, Japan’s second Hayabusa space probe this summer reached the asteroid Ryugu and dropped two robotic rovers on the surface. Their mission: Nothing less than uncovering the mystery of life.

The Hayabusa2 mission follows on the ground-breaking voyage of the original Hayabusa to another asteroi…