TOKYO — A Japanese capsule carrying the first samples of asteroid subsurface shot across the night atmosphere early Sunday before successfully landing in the remote Australian Outback, completing a mission to provide clues to the origin of the solar system and life on Earth.
The spacecraft Hayabusa2 released the small capsule on Saturday and sent it toward Earth to deliver samples from a distant asteroid. At about 6 miles above ground, a parachute was opened to slow its fall and beacon signals were transmitted to indicate its location in the sparsely populated area of Woomera in southern Australia.
About two hours after the reentry, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said its helicopter search team found the capsule in the planned landing area. The retrieval of the pan-shaped capsule, about 15 inches in diameter, was completed after another two hours.
“The capsule collection work at the landing site was completed,” the agency said in a tweet. “We practiced a lot for today … it ended safe.”
The return of the capsule with the world’s first asteroid subsurface samples comes weeks after NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made a successful touch-and-go grab of surface samples from asteroid Bennu. China, meanwhile, announced this week its lunar lander collected underground samples and sealed them within the spacecraft for return to Earth, as space developing nations compete in their missions.
Thomas Zurbuchen, a Swiss-American astrophysicist and the associated administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, congratulated the Japan space agency and “the many individuals in Japan and beyond who made this possible.”
Zurbuchen wrote on Twitter: “Together, we’ll gain a better understanding of the origins of our solar system, &the source of water and organic molecules that may have seeded life on Earth.”
The fireball could be seen even from the International Space Station.