Early Sunday the capsule briefly turned into a fireball as it reentered the atmosphere 120 kilometers (75 miles) above Earth. Hayabusa2 left the asteroid Ryugu, about 300 million kilometers (180 million miles) away, a year ago. After it released the capsule, it moved away from Earth to capture images of the capsule descending toward the planet as it set off on a new expedition to another distant asteroid. JAXA hopes to find clues to how the materials are distributed in the solar system and are related to life on Earth. Asteroids, which orbit the sun but are much smaller than planets, are among the oldest objects in the solar system and therefore may help explain how Earth evolved.

Source: Hindustan Times December 06, 2020 00:18 UTC