A Chinese spacecraft on a mission to collect and return samples of a near-Earth asteroid beamed back its first image of its target.<\/p>\n
Called Kamo\u2018oalewa, the space rock loops by Earth, coming as close as 9 million miles and as far as 25 million miles from our planet. It\u2019s a quasi-satellite<\/a>, meaning it orbits the sun, but it sticks close to Earth\u2014astronomers have discovered eight of these space rocks that seem to follow our planet’s path.<\/p>\n Some space scientists affectionately refer to these objects as Earth\u2019s \u201cmini moons,\u201d or \u201cquasi moons,\u201d although research suggests Kamo\u2018oalewa may in fact be a stray piece of our moon that was thrown into space by an ancient impact<\/a>. Other evidence, including James Webb Space Telescope observations, dispute that theory, however.<\/p>\n On supporting science journalism<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing<\/a>. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n China\u2019s Tianwen-2 has spent the last 400 days traveling to Kamo\u2019oalewa, a journey that spanned around 621 million miles. The rock is about 66 feet in diameter\u2014a little larger than a school bus\u2014and it rotates on its axis every 28 minutes. It was discovered in 2016, and Tianwen-2 launched to retrieve samples from it on May 28, 2025. The spacecraft is scheduled to return the samples to Earth in 2027, dropping them into Earth\u2019s atmosphere during a flyby of our planet.<\/p>\n Tianwen-2\u2019s equipment will allow it to recover samples in three ways, depending on the situation. One way uses a touch-and-go method similar to that used by NASA\u2019s OSIRIS-REx asteroid<\/a> sampling mission and Japan\u2019s Hayabusa2 asteroid mission. Tianwen-2 may also attempt an anchor-and-attach method, which involves the spacecraft physically attaching itself to the space rock and then collecting samples of the surface and subsurface. It could also use a hovering method, whereby a robotic arm will deploy from the spacecraft as it hovers above the asteroid and scoop up some of the surface material.<\/p>\n The China National Space Administration<\/a> said in a statement that Tianwen-2 had reached a distance of 12 miles from the asteroid in late June.<\/p>\n “The probe will progressively conduct more detailed scientific exploration to acquire data on the asteroid\u2019s morphology, material composition and internal structure, laying the groundwork for subsequent sample collection operations,” CNSA said.<\/p>\n After Tianwen-2 drops off the samples in Earth\u2019s atmosphere, it is set to continue its journey to comet 311P\/PanSTARRS, where it will conduct further observations and scientific studies.<\/p>\n It\u2019s Time to Stand Up for Science<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/a>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts<\/a>, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters<\/a>, must-watch videos, challenging games<\/a>, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. 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I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Chinese spacecraft on a mission to collect and return samples of a near-Earth asteroid beamed back its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-536011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}