Japan's Space Agency JAXA releases eye-boggling images from asteroid Ryugu's surface and netizens can't stop talking about it | SEE DETAILS INSIDE

MINERVA-II1, world's first man-made object to explore movement on an asteroid surface landed on the surface of asteriod Ryugu on September 21 and shared images on social media.

Edited by: India TV News Desk, Tokyo [ Updated: September 30, 2018 14:58 IST ]
The space agency won hearts of netizens on Sunday as it
Image Source : JAXA

The space agency won hearts of netizens on Sunday as it released more images and even a video from Ryugu's surface.

Japan made history last week when it became the first country to successfully land on the surface of asteroid Ryugu.

MINERVA-II1, world's first man-made object to explore movement on an asteroid surface landed on the surface of asteroid Ryugu on September 21 and shared images on social media.

The space agency won hearts of netizens on Sunday as it released more images and even a video from Ryugu's surface.

The two rovers, Rover 1A and Rover 1B, were launched onto Ryugu's surface on September 21 by their 'mothership' Hayabusa2, which had journeyed three and a half years before finally make it to the asteroid in June.

The rovers weight around 1 kg and are pretty much the size and shape of a cookie tin. They move about the asteroid's low-gravity environment by hopping, fuelled by a solar-powered internal mass that rotates to generate force.

Twitter user 'Transferrins' created this incredible stop-motion animation of the rover's landing on the asteroid, which shows just how nail-biting that journey was.

These new videos and images show in detail Ryugu's rugged, boulder-covered landscape, and it's the closest look we've had to date at this kind of Solar System object.

As well as taking these breathtaking images and videos, the rovers will be measuring temperatures across the surface of the asteroid, and will also eventually collect underground material.

Ryugu is thought to contain water, which is why it's named after a magical palace at the bottom of the sea; this mission will tell us more about the object's composition.

"I cannot find words to express how happy I am," said project manager Yuichi Tsuda when the rovers' safe arrival was confirmed earlier in the week.

"It is amazing to be a human living at this moment in the history of space exploration", he added. 

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