Ryugu is a heap of space rubble that might unlock the mysteries of water on Earth

The Hayabusa2 mission launched in 2014 and has taken a number of pictures and scans of the asteroid. It has also deployed hopping rovers on its surface and shot bullets into its rocks, which told us more about the geology of its surface. Now, three papers published in Science today have used this data to measure the asteroid’s density, mass, shape, and spin. The findings should help scientists better understand the rock samples Hayabusa2 is slated to bring back to Earth in 2020.

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