Asteroid Ryugu or Asteroid 162173 Ryugu is the most important rock in our solar system after following a successful sample-return mission by Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft, scientists discovered that ...

See multiple views from the Hayabusa2 spacecraft's touching down on asteroid 162173 Ryugu. Credit: JAXA/U. Tokyo/Kochi ...

Asteroid Ryugu is proving to be one of the most scientifically valuable time capsules in the solar system. A recent study of microscopic grains collected from Ryugu by Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft ...

A close-up image of asteroid Ryugu. A new analysis of samples from the space rock hints that flowing water once coursed through its interior. | Credit: ISAS/JAXA, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons ...

One of the biggest scientific questions is how life began on Earth. It is widely accepted that life started through chemical evolution. Scientists have also proposed that asteroids and comets may have ...

Nucleobases are essential components of DNA and RNA, which underpin life on Earth. Detecting them in uncontaminated extraterrestrial material helps researchers to understand how such compounds can ...

A team of researchers, including those at the University of Tokyo, discovered that liquid water once flowed on the asteroid that spawned near-Earth asteroid Ryugu more than a billion years after it ...

Learn how fragments from asteroid Ryugu provide evidence of water flowing within asteroids formed in the early Solar System. Despite having such a dry and rocky exterior, asteroids used to be ...

The Nature Index 2026 Research Leaders reveal the leading institutions and countries/territories in the natural sciences, health sciences, applied sciences and social sciences, according to their ...