A capsule with samples from the remote asteroid Ryugu that were collected last year by a Japanese space probe arrived in Tokyo on Tuesday after landing last Sunday in a desert area in southern Australia.
According to images broadcast on television, the capsule, which contains sand from the asteroid, It arrived on a plane that landed at Haneda Airport and was later transported to the headquarters of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
The samples were taken last year by the space probe Hayabusa2, which was launched in 2014 and fell off the capsule last Saturday as it approached Earth after a journey of about 5.2 billion kilometers.
The capsule is expected to be open in the next few days in a JAXA laboratory, and throughout 2021, scientists will analyze its contents to look for signs that indicate how the Solar System was formed with the data provided by the Ryugu sand.
Among the samples taken by Hayabusa2 are underground remains Ryugu, who have not been affected by external elements, which can provide valuable information about the formation of the Solar System.
