Japan space agency lands two rovers on an asteroid for survey

According to the Japan space agency, two of the robot rovers have landed on an asteroid and begun a survey. The agency has conducted a mission to research on the origin of the solar system.

This marks as the first time a moving, robotic rover has been sent on an asteroid surface for observation, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The cookie tin-shaped robots reached the Ryugu asteroid a day after they were launched from the Hayabusa2 probe, the agency said.

"Each of the rovers is operating normally and has started surveying Ryugu's surface," JAXA said in a statement.

Thanks to the low gravity of the asteroid, the rovers will be able to jump around the surface for as high as 15 meters (49 feet) and staying there for as long as 15 minutes-to survey the asteroid's physical features.

"I am so proud that we have established a new method of space exploration for small celestial bodies," said JAXA project manager Yuichi Tsuda.

The agency previously failed to land a rover on another asteroid in a similar mission. Hayabusa2 will also be deploying an "impactor" that is supposed to explode over the asteroid's surface to shoot a two-kilo copper object to blast a small crater into the surface. From this crater, the probe will collect "fresh" materials unexposed to millennia of wind and radiation. This will help it find the origin of universe and life on Earth.

The probe will also be deploying a French-German landing vehicle called the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) for surface observation.

Besides, NASA's planet-hunting probe TESS, previously sent back its first science image, which captures a star's wealth and other cosmic objects in the southern sky. The images were taken using the probe's four wide-field cameras during a 30-minute period on August 7.

Now, the team has turned up a potential relocation candidate on the first pass with a new satellite. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) embarked on a two-year journey to scan the southern and northern skies. During the time, the probe will study an unprecedented 85 percent of the sky, which is 350 times more than the company's Kepler mission.