Ryugu is an asteroid half-a-mile (800 meters) in diameter that orbits the sun at a distance up to 131 million miles (211 million kilometers). On Wednesday, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) landed its Hayabusa-2 aircraft on the asteroid and took some pictures to send back.

"The first photo was taken at 10:06:32 JST (UMT +9, on-board time) and you can see the gravel flying upwards. The second shot was at 10:08:53 where the darker region near the center is due to touchdown," JAXA tweeted.