Australia’s Outback Touchdown for a Japanese Space Capsule With Asteroid Samples

This imaginary image, illustrated by Akihiro Ikeshita and released from Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) shows Japan's space probe "Hayabusa" (Falcon) and an asteroid, called Itokawa in the space. Akihiro IKESHITA/ Getty Images

After a six-year mission and a flight of hundreds of millions of kilometres, a Japanese space capsule has landed in the South Australian outback, carrying the first sub-surface asteroid samples.

The capsule has been travelling on board the Hayabusa2 spacecraft which first landed on the Ryugu asteroid, more than 300 million kilometres from earth, in February last year.