How did the mission reach material below the surface?

It fired a copper impactor to make a crater

Where does the name Ryugu come from?

A dragon palace in a Japanese folktale

Ryugu Quiz: Hayabusa2 and Asteroid Samples Brought Home

This Ryugu quiz follows JAXA's Hayabusa2 to a spinning-top asteroid and back. Play 10 interactive questions on Ryugu's shape and type, the 2014 launch, hopping rovers, the copper impactor, collecting buried material, the capsule landing in Australia, amino acids and uracil, and the folktale behind the name.

Start Ryugu Quiz

🎯 Daily Trivia Challenge • 🧠 10 Questions • ⏱️ 150 Seconds

Question 1 / 10 Time: 150s

Agency
Which space agency ran the Hayabusa2 mission?
Type
What kind of object is Ryugu?
Shape
What shape is Ryugu?
Launch
When did Hayabusa2 launch?
Rovers
What did Hayabusa2 drop onto Ryugu's surface?
Crater
How did the mission reach material below the surface?
Return
Where did the sample capsule land in December 2020?
Amount
About how much material came back?
Life
Which life-related molecule was found in the samples?
Name
Where does the name Ryugu come from?

Explanations: answer key for all 10 questions

Q1: Which space agency ran the Hayabusa2 mission?
Answer: JAXA
It is Japan's space agency.
Q2: What kind of object is Ryugu?
Answer: A near-Earth asteroid
It is rich in carbon.
Q3: What shape is Ryugu?
Answer: Like a spinning top or diamond
It is about 900 meters wide.
Q4: When did Hayabusa2 launch?
Answer: 2014
It reached Ryugu in 2018.
Q5: What did Hayabusa2 drop onto Ryugu's surface?
Answer: Small hopping rovers
Low gravity made wheels useless.
Q6: How did the mission reach material below the surface?
Answer: It fired a copper impactor to make a crater
It then collected fresh samples.
Q7: Where did the sample capsule land in December 2020?
Answer: Woomera, Australia
It parachuted into the desert.
Q8: About how much material came back?
Answer: About 5 grams
It was more than planned.
Q9: Which life-related molecule was found in the samples?
Answer: Uracil, an RNA building block
Amino acids were found too.
Q10: Where does the name Ryugu come from?
Answer: A dragon palace in a Japanese folktale
The tale is Urashima Taro.

Ryugu Quiz – Hayabusa2 and Asteroid Samples Brought Home

Ryugu is a carbon-rich near-Earth asteroid about 900 meters wide, shaped like a spinning top. Japan's space agency JAXA launched Hayabusa2 in 2014, and it arrived at Ryugu in 2018.

The spacecraft dropped small hopping rovers onto the surface and fired a copper impactor to make a crater, then collected fresh material from below. Its name comes from the dragon palace in the folktale of Urashima Taro.

In December 2020 a capsule carrying about 5 grams of samples landed in Woomera, Australia. Scientists found amino acids and uracil, an RNA building block, supporting ideas that asteroids delivered life's ingredients to Earth.

What This Quiz Teaches

Space fans will enjoy these questions.

What Ryugu is
Who visited it
How samples were collected
Where they landed
What they contained

Did You Know?

Hayabusa2 continued on an extended mission to another asteroid.
The first Hayabusa returned samples from Itokawa in 2010.
NASA's OSIRIS-REx brought back samples from Bennu.
Ryugu's surface is covered in boulders.
Samples are stored to avoid Earth contamination.