A Japanese rover has sent back high-resolution images and video from the surface of an asteroid hundreds of millions of kilometres away from Earth.
Hayabusa2, launched in 2014, went into orbit around asteroid Ryugu in June. A week ago it dropped a couple of 18cm-wide rovers onto the asteroid.
One of those tiny robots has now sent back 15 frames of video, which show the surface of the 1km-wide rock, currently on the other side of the sun.
"Rover-1B succeeded in shooting a movie on Ryugu's surface!" the mission's official Twitter account announced on Friday (NZ time).
"Please take a moment to enjoy 'standing' on this new world."
The video was shot on the morning of September 23, Japan time, as were a number of stunning photos of not just the surface, but the shadow of the hovering Hayabusa2 spacecraft, only 64m above the ground.
The small, diamond-shaped asteroid's low gravity will allow the tiny rovers to make 15m jumps to get around.
Two more rovers are expected to be dropped before Hayabusa2 leaves Ryugu and begins the year-long journey home in December 2019.
Ryugu is considered a potentially hazardous object by NASA, as it shares a similar orbit to Earth. It was named after an underwater palace from Japanese folklore, where a fisherman retrieves a mysterious box - much like the Hayabusa2 mission itself.
NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will land on another potentially dangerous asteroid, Bennu, in December.
Newshub.
