One such object is asteroid (162173) Ryugu, a 1 km-wide near-Earth asteroid believed to have originated in the asteroid belt. However, it has since moved to cross Earth's orbit, located 300 ...

Researchers studied tiny asteroid fragments from Ryugu, revealing that it originated in the outer solar system and evolved ...

Imperial College London scientists say microbes on asteroid samples from Japan's Hayabusa 2 mission have down to Earth ...

Panspermia is the hypothesis that life can survive the transfer between planetary bodies as a secondary path for life to get ...

See multiple views from the Hayabusa2 spacecraft's touching down on asteroid 162173 Ryugu. Credit: JAXA/U. Tokyo/Kochi ...

The salt crystals, consisting of rock salt, sodium carbonate, and sodium sulfate, are crucial for understanding the evolution ...

Scientists have found microorganisms crawling over a sample retrieved from the 200 million-mile-distant asteroid Ryugu. But ...

Despite their best efforts, the team discovered "rods and filaments of organic matter, which are interpreted as filamentous microorganisms, on a space-returned sample from 162173 Ryugu recovered ...

Microscope image of one of the small fragments of asteroid 162173 Ryugu studied by scientists at the Advanced Photon Source. This fragment is roughly 400 microns in diameter, or about the width of ...

Snapping a series of pictures that revealed the asteroid’s shape. The asteroid of choice was 162173 Ryugu, or Ryugu for short. In Japanese it refers to a magical, underwater Dragon Palace.