A Japanese spacecraft just shot at an asteroid... to try and make a crater

Tell you what, it's certainly not everyday someone shoots at an asteroid.

Japan's space agency, JAXA, tried to do just that with its Hayabusa-2 spacecraft, which was launched in 2014. It's been hanging out on asteroid called Ryugu since June 2018, where it's been studying the surface. 

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A bit before midday Japan Standard Time (JST) on Friday, the spacecraft attempted to blast a new crater on Ryugu by firing something called a "small carry-on impactor" (SCI) toward the asteroid.

[SCI] April 5 at 11:56 JST. The SCI operation time has passed and we have confirmed there is no problem with the spacecraft during the evacuation operation.

— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) April 5, 2019 Read more...

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