Sara Russell

3 weeks ago | theconversation.com | Mary Magnuson |Brian R. Elbing |Elizabeth A. Silber |Paul Byrne |Sara Russell |Timothy J. McCoy | +1 more

China’s Tianwen-2 asteroid sample return mission is set to launch this month, May 2025, en route to the asteroid Kamoʻoalewa (2016 HO3). The country could join the United States and Japan, whose space agencies have both successfully retrieved a sample from an asteroid to study back on Earth. Several space missions have flown by asteroids before and gotten a peek at their compositions, but bringing a sample back to Earth is even more helpful for scientists.