Humanity is about to get its first (willingly received!) moon rocks in 44 years thanks to China’s Chang’e 5 probe. Yes, it’s true – we’re spoilt with all the space rocks we’ve been getting recently. Chang’e 5 is China’s first sample return mission, and the first mission to retrieve lunar samples since the Soviet Luna […]
Tag: astronomy
Hayabusa2 brings us our latest space rocks
After travelling over 5 billion kilometres on a six year round trip, a Japanese spacecraft named Hayabusa 2 has completed its mission, potentially bringing us closer to unlocking more secrets of our solar system. The mission In late 2014, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) sent a probe to a near-Earth asteroid named Ryugu. This […]
The turbulent past and future of the Milky Way
The Milky Way galaxy has had a rough history of collisions with other galactic bodies, and as we get closer to our crash with Andromeda galaxy, we’re learning more about the mergers of the past. Our galaxy is built on collisions – over the last 12 billion years, at least a dozen other galaxies have […]