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0.5 AU

25143 Itokawa

Asteroid

A small, peanut-shaped near-Earth asteroid that became the first asteroid from which samples were collected and returned to Earth, via Japan's Hayabusa spacecraft in 2005.

Key Facts

orbital regime

Inner System

learn more

Wikipedia

mass

3.5100e+10 kg

radius

0.165 km

hill radius

25.739 km

semi-major axis

1.324 AU

eccentricity

0.28

inclination

1.621º

longitude of the ascending node

69.077º

argument of periapsis

162.82º

orbital period

1.524 years

discovery date

September 26, 1998

discovered by

LINEAR (Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research)

name origins

Named after Hideo Itokawa, a Japanese rocket scientist

dimensions

0.33 km diameter

albedo

0.53

material composition

S-type asteroid

density

1.9 g/cm³
Spacecraft Visits
Hayabusa

Lander

JAXA

Launched in 2003, landed in 2005

After a troubled landing attempt in November 2005, Hayabusa managed to briefly touch down on asteroid Itokawa and collect a microscopic sample before experiencing a series of technical issues that nearly ended the mission.

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