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China’s Tianwen-2 Launches to Grab First ‘Living Fossil’ Asteroid Samples

China’s Tianwen-2 Launches to Grab First ‘Living Fossil’ Asteroid Samples

China on Thursday introduced an area probe at the nation’s first project to retrieve samples from an asteroid and produce them house for analysis, the Xinhua state information company reported.


Beijing has ploughed billions of greenbacks into its area programme in recent times so that you could reach what President Xi Jinping describes as the rustic’s “area dream“.


It has constructed an area station orbiting the Earth and plans to run a crewed project to the Moon this decade forward of setting up an enduring base there.


A Long March-3B rocket sporting the Tianwen-2 probe blasted off from the Xichang release website online in southwestern Sichuan province at 1:31 am (1731 GMT).

China’s Tianwen-2 probe lifts off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center atop a Long March-3B rocket on 29 May 2025. (Xinhua/Cai Yang)

About 18 mins later, the Tianwen-2 probe was once despatched right into a switch orbit from Earth to the asteroid 2016HO3, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) stated, consistent with Xinhua.


“The spacecraft unfolded its solar panels smoothly, and the CNSA declared the launch a success,” the scoop company wrote.


Despite the project’s lengthy length and critical dangers, Shan “expressed his expectation of yielding groundbreaking discoveries and expanding humanity’s knowledge of the cosmos,” consistent with Xinhua.


Tianwen-2 is tasked with accumulating samples from the near-Earth asteroid 2016HO3, and exploring the comet 311P, consistent with the rustic’s area company.


Discovered by means of scientists in Hawaii in 2016, the asteroid is kind of 40 to 100 metres (130-330 ft) in diameter and orbits quite on the subject of Earth.


It is a “dwelling fossil” consisting of historical fabrics that may lend a hand scientists know how the early Solar System shaped, Xinhua reported this week.


The comet, in the meantime, orbits between Mars and Jupiter and is alluring to researchers as it shows some options extra frequently related to asteroids.


The Tianwen-2 project is predicted to closing round a decade.


China’s area programme is the 3rd to place people in orbit – after the United States and the Soviet Union – and has additionally landed robot rovers on Mars and the Moon.


Its area station, Tiangong – whose title method “celestial palace” in Chinese – is the jewel in its crown.


Last month, China despatched 3 astronauts to Tiangong for a six-month stint as a part of the Shenzhou-20 project.

© Agence France-Presse


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