NASA has received its first sample of asteroid Ryugu that returned to Earth in December 2020 by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Hayabusa2 spacecraft.
Samples from asteroid Ryugu is one of the first samples to leave Japan for preliminary investigation.
Mike Zolensky was one of the first scientists to examine this sample so as to determine its basic nature.
Note
Asteroid Ryugu is also called as 162173 Ryugu.
It is provisionally designated as 1999 JU3.
It is a near-Earth object and a potentially hazardous asteroid belonging to Apollo group.