Asteroid craft’s Big Bang clues

A SPACECRAFT has successfully landed on an asteroid and collected underground soil samples for the first time.

Scientists hope that Hayabusa2, built by Japan’s space agency, will provide clues to the origin of the solar system.

To do this it first created itself a landing crater by dropping a heavy copper plate. Yesterday’s mission was to land inside the crater and take samples from beneath the surface through a tube.

The asteroid, named Ryugu after a dragon palace in a Japanese folk tale, is about 180million miles from Earth. Asteroids are – in essence – minor planets that orbit the sun. They are mainly composed of mineral and rock, unlike comets, which are largely ice and dust.

The unmanned robotic craft is expected to leave the asteroid to return to Earth at the end of next year.