When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A close-up image of asteroid Ryugu. A new analysis of samples from the space rock hints that ...

Asteroid Ryugu is proving to be one of the most scientifically valuable time capsules in the solar system. A recent study of microscopic grains collected from Ryugu by Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft ...

Large quantities of water once flowed through the asteroid Ryugu, an indication that asteroids could have brought much more water to Earth than previously thought. The origin of Earth’s water is ...

The Hayabusa2 probe has sent back stunning images of the surface of Ryugu, giving researchers an up-close look at the asteroid’s rocky surface. February 21st, 2019, the Japanese space agency’s ...

In June 2018, Japan's Hayabusa 2 mission reached asteroid 162173 Ryugu. It studied the asteroid for about 15 months, deploying small rovers and a lander, before gathering a sample and returning it to ...

"This forces us to rethink the starting conditions for our planet’s water system." Liquid water flowed across the surface of the asteroid that birthed the near-Earth object (NEO) Ryugu much later than ...

Today, the near-Earth asteroid known as Ryugu is bone dry. But new research suggests that the half-mile space rock may have once been flowing with liquid water — and crucially, at a period in the ...

Scientists in Japan now believe that liquid water once flowed through the heart of the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu, after researchers detected something unusual in the samples of the space rock that ...

Ryugu’s samples reveal that water activity on asteroids lasted far longer than scientists thought, possibly reshaping theories of how Earth gained its oceans. A billion-year-old impact may have melted ...

Here is an artist’s impression of the size difference between the previous target asteroid for Japan’s Hayabusa2 space mission, 162173 Ryugu, and 1998 KY26. Hayabusa2 collected samples from Ryugu in ...