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.