Following a mishap during its rendezvous with an asteroid in
2005, and other technical problems, the Japanese spacecraft
Hayabusa was all but given up for dead. Miraculously it has been
nursed back to life, and it is now hurtling towards Earth, on
track to hurl a small but potentially momentous capsule into the
Australian outback on Sunday, 13 June. No one knows whether
Hayabusa managed to grab a dust sample when it landed on the
asteroid Itokawa. If it did, this would be a first. Even more
significantly, the dust will give us clues as to how the Earth
formed, as well as insights into how to prevent it being
destroyed by an asteroid impact. Find out more in this New
Scientist briefing. Where is Hayabusa now? At 0900 Japan time
today (11 June) the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
announced that Hayabusa was 1,142,550 kilometres from home,
following its fourth and final "trajectory correction manoeuvre"
on Wednesday. This nudged Hayabusa into the position needed for
an 18-kilogram capsule – hopefully c