The Hayabusa 2 probe touched down on the asteroid Ryugu – which is located 300 million kilometres from Earth – at around 11:30pm GMT on Thursday. According to officials from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa), data from the probe showed changes in speed in direction, indicating it had reached the asteroid’s surface.

“We made a successful touchdown, including firing a bullet into the Ryugu asteroid,” said Hayabusa 2’s project manager Yuichi Tsuda. “We made the ideal touchdown in the best conditions,” he added after the team at Jaxa received a signal about the touchdown.

Jaxa spokesperson Chisato Ikuta said the control centre had “received data that shows that the probe is working normally and is healthy”, adding that scientists are continuing to gather and analyse date from the probe.

The probe was due to fire a bullet at the Ryugu asteroid to stir up surface matter, which it will then collect for analysis back on Earth. The asteroid is thought to contain relatively large amounts of organic matter and water from some 4.6 billion years ago when the solar system was born.

According to the probe’s mission manager Makoto Yoshikawa, this complicated procedure took less time than expected and appeared to be successful. “I’m really relieved now. It felt very long until the moment the touchdown happened,” he added.

Yoshikawa said the firing of the bullet – the first of three planned in this mission – “will lead to a leap, or new discoveries, in planetary science”.

During sample collection, the spacecraft approached the 1km-wide asteroid with an instrument called the sampler horn. On touchdown, a 5g ‘bullet’ made of the metal tantalum was fired into the rocky surface at 300m/s.

The aim of the spacecraft is to gather around 10g of the dislodged debris with the sampler horn, and any material collected will be stored onboard the probe until the Hayabusa 2 reaches its landing site in Woomera, South Australia – hoping to land in 2020 after a journey of three billion miles.

Ryugu belongs to a particularly primitive type of space rock known as a C-type. The near-Earth asteroid (NEA) is a relic left over from the early days of our solar system.

Professor Alan Fitzsimmons, from Queen’s University Belfast, said: “We think we understand how carbon-rich asteroids migrate from the asteroid belt to become near-Earth asteroids, but the samples from Ryugu will allow its history to be explored.

“After the Rosetta mission, it’s now clear that most of Earth’s water did not come from comets in the early days of the solar system.” Fitzsimmons added.

“We believe carbon-rich (C-type) asteroids may have significant amounts of water locked up in their rocks. It’s possible such asteroids may have brought to Earth both the water and the organic material necessary for life to start. These samples will be crucial in investigating this possibility.”

The Ryugu asteroid, named after an undersea palace in a Japanese folktale, is about 900m in diameter and 280 million kilmotres (170 million miles) from Earth.

In December 2018, researchers from Jaxa and the University of Tokyo detected the existence of water in a number of asteroids using the infrared satellite Akari.

The Hayabusa 2 probe touched down on the asteroid Ryugu – which is located 300 million kilometres from Earth – at around 11:30pm GMT on Thursday. According to officials from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa), data from the probe showed changes in speed in direction, indicating it had reached the asteroid’s surface.

“We made a successful touchdown, including firing a bullet into the Ryugu asteroid,” said Hayabusa 2’s project manager Yuichi Tsuda. “We made the ideal touchdown in the best conditions,” he added after the team at Jaxa received a signal about the touchdown.

Jaxa spokesperson Chisato Ikuta said the control centre had “received data that shows that the probe is working normally and is healthy”, adding that scientists are continuing to gather and analyse date from the probe.

The probe was due to fire a bullet at the Ryugu asteroid to stir up surface matter, which it will then collect for analysis back on Earth. The asteroid is thought to contain relatively large amounts of organic matter and water from some 4.6 billion years ago when the solar system was born.

According to the probe’s mission manager Makoto Yoshikawa, this complicated procedure took less time than expected and appeared to be successful. “I’m really relieved now. It felt very long until the moment the touchdown happened,” he added.

Yoshikawa said the firing of the bullet – the first of three planned in this mission – “will lead to a leap, or new discoveries, in planetary science”.

During sample collection, the spacecraft approached the 1km-wide asteroid with an instrument called the sampler horn. On touchdown, a 5g ‘bullet’ made of the metal tantalum was fired into the rocky surface at 300m/s.

The aim of the spacecraft is to gather around 10g of the dislodged debris with the sampler horn, and any material collected will be stored onboard the probe until the Hayabusa 2 reaches its landing site in Woomera, South Australia – hoping to land in 2020 after a journey of three billion miles.

Ryugu belongs to a particularly primitive type of space rock known as a C-type. The near-Earth asteroid (NEA) is a relic left over from the early days of our solar system.

Professor Alan Fitzsimmons, from Queen’s University Belfast, said: “We think we understand how carbon-rich asteroids migrate from the asteroid belt to become near-Earth asteroids, but the samples from Ryugu will allow its history to be explored.

“After the Rosetta mission, it’s now clear that most of Earth’s water did not come from comets in the early days of the solar system.” Fitzsimmons added.

“We believe carbon-rich (C-type) asteroids may have significant amounts of water locked up in their rocks. It’s possible such asteroids may have brought to Earth both the water and the organic material necessary for life to start. These samples will be crucial in investigating this possibility.”

The Ryugu asteroid, named after an undersea palace in a Japanese folktale, is about 900m in diameter and 280 million kilmotres (170 million miles) from Earth.

In December 2018, researchers from Jaxa and the University of Tokyo detected the existence of water in a number of asteroids using the infrared satellite Akari.