Japan is about to bomb an asteroid and you can watch here

From Japan The Hayabusa2 probe has already fired on the Ryugu asteroid closely to suck a sample of the rock. The mission is now going farther and is trying to blow up a new crater on the surface of the object on which it has been orbiting for months.

The Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) announced Wednesday evening at Pacific time its launch of the "small cabin impactor" (SCI) phase of the Hayabusa2 mission. The SCI is actually a 2-kilogram piece of copper (4.4 pounds) that will be pulled to Ryugu at a speed of 2 km / s (4474 mph).

The hope is that the impact exposes some of the underlying structure of the asteroid for observation. Hayabusa2 will also go down and sample some of the materials dislodged below the surface to compare them to the surface crumbs collected previously during the mission.

Here's what it looked like when JAXA tested its asteroid bomber on Earth:

You can watch the live stream below the Hayabusa2 Mission Control with English translation during the SCI mission starting at 6pm. PT Thursday. The explosion of the ICS should occur about an hour and a half later, at 19:36. PT.

About three weeks after hitting Ryugu with what is basically a copper cannonball, Hayabusa2 will start looking for the man-made crater from a higher observation point and plan a landing at his custom landing point as early as May.