30 June 2025
Event
International
A first in Europe for samples of the Ryugu asteroid
Published on12.10.2023
On Saturday, September 9th, on the occasion of the Rugby World Cup, Masaki Fujimoto, Deputy Director and scientist at the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA), Kate Kitagawa, JAXA Head of Education and Chiharu Hoshino, representative of the JAXA in Paris, unveiled at the Cité de l’espace samples of the Ruygu asteroid, brought back in 2020 by the Hayabusa2 mission, presented in the permanent collection.
This is the first time that samples of the Ruygu asteroid are shown in Europe, in two leading venues for scientific culture: the Cité de l’espace and the London Science Museum. On loan for an initial period of one year, these grains, each of which are under a millimeter, are of major scientific importance in our quest to understand the origin and evolution of the solar system as well as the emergence of life.
