AirDate: 11/25/2018 |
Overview: In September 2018, Japan's space agency, JAXA, became the first to land a robotic explorer on an asteroid. The rovers were dispatched from the asteroid explorer Hayabusa2 and are now gathering samples that are expected to shed light on the origin of the Solar System and the evolution of life. We'll be hearing all about this and more from Dr. Hitoshi Kuninaka, who developed the ion engine that allowed Hayabusa2 to travel 3.2 billion km in three and a half years to reach the asteroid Ryugu. |