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Chinese spacecraft beams backmost first image of Earth’s “mini moon”
China’s Tianwen-2 intends to cod samples from asteroid Kamo’oalewa and return them to Earth
By Claire Cameron edited by Jeanna Bryner
Near-Earth asteroid Kamo'oalewa imaged by Tianwen-2
CNSA
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A Chinese spacecraft connected a ngo to cod and return samples of a near-Earth asteroid beamed backmost its first image of its target.
Called Kamo‘oalewa, nan abstraction stone loops by Earth, coming arsenic adjacent arsenic 9 cardinal miles and arsenic acold arsenic 25 cardinal miles from our planet. It’s a quasi-satellite, meaning it orbits nan sun, but it sticks adjacent to Earth—astronomers person discovered 8 of these abstraction rocks.
Some abstraction scientists affectionately mention to these objects arsenic Earth’s “mini moons,” aliases “quasi moons,” though investigation suggests Kamo‘oalewa whitethorn successful truth beryllium a stray portion of our moon, thrown into abstraction by an ancient impact. Other evidence, including James Webb Space Telescope observations, conflict that theory, however.
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China’s Tianwen-2 has spent nan past 400 days walking to Kamo‘oalewa, a travel that spanned astir 621 cardinal miles. The stone is astir 20 meters successful diameter—a small larger than a schoolhouse bus—and it rotates connected its axis each 28 minutes. It was discovered successful 2016, and Tianwen-2 launched to retrieve samples from it connected May 28, 2025. The spacecraft is scheduled to return nan samples to Earth successful 2027, dropping them into Earth’s ambiance during a flyby of our planet.
Tianwen-2’s instrumentality will let it to retrieve samples successful 3 ways, depending connected nan situation: One is utilizing a touch-and-go method akin to that utilized by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sampling ngo and Japan’s Hayabusa-2 asteroid mission. Tianwen-2 whitethorn besides effort an anchor-and-attach method, which involves nan spacecraft physically attaching itself to nan abstraction stone and past collecting samples of nan aboveground and subsurface. It could besides usage a hovering method, whereby a robotic limb will deploy from nan spacecraft arsenic it hovers supra nan asteroid and scoop up immoderate of nan aboveground material.
The China National Space Administration said successful a connection that Tianwen-2 had reached a region of 12 miles from nan asteroid successful precocious June.
"The probe will progressively behaviour much elaborate technological exploration to get information connected nan asteroid’s morphology, worldly creation and soul structure, laying nan groundwork for consequent sample postulation operations," nan CNSA said.
After Tianwen-2 drops disconnected nan samples successful Earth’s atmosphere, it is group to proceed its travel to comet 311P/PanSTARRS, wherever it will behaviour further observations and technological studies.
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