The capsule containing surface elements of the asteroid Ryugu, on December 5, 2020 after it landed in Australia.

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Handout / JAXA / AFP

That's it !

We had been waiting for the opening of the capsule brought back by the Hayabusa space probe for a good week.

A good surprise for the scientists: it does contain a material, a black dust similar to sand, which would come from the distant asteroid Ryugu.

The discovery was announced eight days after the Hayabusa-2 probe dropped a small capsule that landed on December 6 in the Australian desert after a long trip to space.

The sample container inside the re-entry capsule was opened on December 14, and we confirmed black grains thought to be from Ryugu were inside.

This is outside the main chambers, and likely particles attached to the sample catcher entrance.

(English release available tomorrow) https://t.co/NAw1R1cjvy pic.twitter.com/5BfXxfH29h

- HAYABUSA2 @ JAXA (@ haya2e_jaxa) December 14, 2020

A sample of a hundred milligrams

Officials from the Japanese Space Agency (Jaxa) on Monday released a photo of a small deposit of material inside a metal box, the first glimpse of the results of an unprecedented six-year mission for the Hayabusa probe -2.

"La Jaxa has confirmed that samples from the asteroid Ryugu are in the container" of the capsule, according to a statement from the Japanese space agency.

"We can confirm that the black, sand-like particles came from the asteroid Ryugu," she added.

Scientists hope the capsule contains up to a hundred milligrams of material collected from Ryugu, more than 300 million kilometers from Earth.

They hope that analysis of this material will help shed light on the origin of life and the formation of the universe 4.6 billion years ago.

“We will continue the work of opening the sample collector.

The extraction and analyzes will be carried out ”by specialized teams, Jaxa said.

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