(Oct. 10) — Like something out of a sci-fi movie, did alien
particles find their way inside a space probe that landed on an
asteroid and returned to Earth? That question was raised last
week by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA,
according to Japanese news agencies. Scientists reportedly found
small, odd particles inside Japan’s Hayabusa spacecraft, which
returned to Earth in June after a seven-year, 3-billion-mile
journey that took it to an asteroid and back. Hayabusa left
Earth in 2003, destined to become the first spacecraft to land
on an asteroid, one of the many small, rocky objects found in
space generally between the planets Mars and Jupiter.After a
more than two-year voyage, Hayabusa spent 30 minutes on the
surface of an asteroid — dubbed Itokawa — and collected small
samples of asteroid dust.Hayabusa’s mission was to get enough
asteroid samples to help scientists learn more about the origins
of our solar system. NASA researchers are helping JAXA in the
examination of the spacecraft’s pow