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The space probe Hayabusa 2 landed on a comet more than 300 million kilometers from Earth as part of a mission to collect information on the origin of life, said Friday the Japanese space agency.
The probe landed on comet Ryujo, which is about 900 meters in diameter after the first attempt was postponed in October, due to the difficulty of determining a landing point on the comet's rock surface.
The Japanese space agency said on Friday that the probe had launched a small extruder on the surface of the comet to collect particles that scientists hoped would return the probe for analysis.
"We may have worried about the delay, but we have executed our plan without mistakes in the last four months to make our landing successful," project director Yuichi Tsuda said at a press conference.
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It was the second Japanese spacecraft to land on a comet after the Hayabusa probe on the surface of the comet Atukawa located near the ground in 2005. The first probe to bring the dust of an asteroid was the earth, although its quantity was not as important as in Marjawa.
Comets are thought to have formed at the beginning of the solar system, and scientists say that Riojo could contain organic matter that has contributed to life on Earth.
According to the plan of the space agency, it is planned to touch (Hayabusa 2) the surface of the comet and raise it up to three times.
The probe was launched in December 2014 and is expected to return to Earth by the end of 2020.
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