Scientists from Japan were given the go-ahead to retrieve the sample return capsule from the Hayabusa spacecraft, which is hoped to contain the first piece of asteroid ever brought to Earth, perhaps providing insight into the origins of asteroids – and our universe. The capsule was ejected three hours before reaching Earth, and the sample canister descended through Earth’s atmosphere, preceding the spacecraft which broke up in spectacular over the Australian Outback. The capsule lay in the Woomera Prohibited Area until morning when Aboriginal elders deemed it had not landed in any indigenous sacred sites, giving the OK for the scientists to retrieve it.

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Japan’s Hayabusa asteroid probe launched in 2003 on an ambitious mission to sample a nearby asteroid and return those samples to Earth a few years later, but some things went wrong along the way – adding a full three extra years onto the hard-luck probe’s mission. This graphic shows the long and winding road of Japan’s Hayabusa mission to visit and sample the asteroid Itokawa.

China’s first man that explores outer space reveals, China astronauts eating of dog meat to maintain their strength during the orbit around the earth.

Yang Liwei, 44-year-old military pilot who commanded the mission of Shenzhou Five years in 2003, reveal the menu of a spaceship crew of China in his autobiography entitled The Nine Levels Between Heaven and Earth.

“Many of my friends wanted to know what we eat (in space) and think that the astronauts must have some expensive meals, such as shark’s fin or oysters,” he wrote, as quoted by the Telegraph, Thursday (05/13/2010).

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