Hayabusa2 rovers start exploring asteroid Ryugu

We’ve sent rovers to explore neighboring planets and moons, but we can now check another near-Earth target off of the list.On September 21, Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully deployed two rovers on to the surface of asteroid Ryugu, becoming the first in history to accomplish such a feat. Once there, rover-1A and 1B were quick to get to work. They began exploring the surface, snapping pictures and taking videos , giving us a long-awaited ground-level view of an asteroid.Hayabusa2, which has been hovering roughly 12 miles (20 kilometers) above the asteroid since it arrived in June, descended to just 180 feet (55 meters) above Ryugu to deploy the rovers from its MINERVA-II lander. Now that they’re operational, the two will spend their time investigating Ryugu’s surface for clues about its formation, evolution and ultimately the state of our early solar system.Asteroids like Ryugu, which orbits between Mars and Earth, are hot research commodities. Unlike planets, it’s believed they’ve more or less gone unchanged since they first formed in the early days of our solar systems. Researchers believe that they may have spread organic molecules around the ancient solar system, as well as water. Ryugu, which likely carries lots of hydrated material, is a good candidate for probing that hypothesis further.