Original subtitles

(dramatic orchestral music)

Today, the Earth is blessed

with 30 million species of life,

but soon after the Earth formed,

it was covered in magma.

Scorching hot planet.

Neither life, nor the ingredients

that would evolve into life.

How did life come into existence on this planet?

In search of answers to this mystery,

the space probe Hayabusa2,

was sent to an astroid 300 million kilometers off in space.

The key to unlocking the mystery of life on Earth,

may be found there.

For the first time in history,

Hayabusa2 blasts a hole in an asteroid,

attempting to gather the ingredients of life

from under the surface,

and encountering unimagined challenges.

Where did we come from?

We'll explore the great adventure of Hayabusa2,

the search for origins of life on Earth.

In December 2014,

the asteroid probe, Hayabusa2 began its journey into space.

It was heading for an asteroid later named Ryugu,

a small object orbiting between the Earth and Mars.

The probe was to gather fragments of rock from the asteroid,

and bring them back to Earth.

A six-year round-trip adventure had begun.

The Japanese Space Agency probe, Hayabusa2,

is six meters long, and about three meters tall.

It's equipped with a special device,

engineered to gather samples from the asteroid.

The tube extending from the bottom of the probe,

is a sampler horn.

When its tip touches ground,

it triggers a switch that fires a bullet.

Rock on the surface is pulverized,

and the horn gathers fragments of the asteroid.

These are sealed in a capsule for return to Earth.

That is the ultimate goal.

But the mission would deploy other tools first,

before this high-risk last shot,

specialized devices built into the spacecraft,

will be used to land on the asteroid.

The first is MASCOT,

a tool to get to know the asteroid.

Just 30 centimeters on a side,

the lander carries a camera

that will bounce along the surface, taking pictures.

Before the main craft lands,

MASCOT will be dropped on to Ryugu.

The second device is the target marker,

which marks the landing zone for the craft.

It's ball-shaped and reflects light.

It will be dropped from straight above the asteroid,

and guide the craft as it lands.

Every effort went into configuring the Hayabusa2 probe.

But what lay ahead,

is a reality far more challenging

than anyone could have imagined.

The team assembles in the Hayabusa2 control room,

at the JAXA Institute of Space and Astrological Science.

Yuichi Tsuda is the Project Manager.

He is in charge, the leader of a 600-person team.

Tsuda was also involved in the first

Hayabusa project at JAXA.

He worked under the first Hayabusa project manager,

Nichiro Kawaguchi,

on a team of about a dozen people,

who operated the probe.

More than a decade later, Tsuda again

has taken on a challenging mission,

this time as the leader.

Kawaguchi assigned a young engineer, Takanao Saiki,

the key task of bringing back samples

from below the surface rocks of an asteroid.

In June, 2018,

Hayabusa2 arrived above the asteroid Ryugu.

Seen from a close distance for the first time,

Ryugu was rugged and rock-strewn,

an unusual celestial body.

Could the project team find a safe landing area?

The team members immediately went to work.

(dramatic orchestral music)

They started by making a detailed map of the asteroid.

From a distance of 20 kilometers,

they took photographs of every feature

on the surface of Ryugu.

Then they bounced a laser beam off the surface,

the measure the height of each area.

From this data, the team created a three-dimensional map.

Ryugu had a peculiar shape

that surprised scientists across the globe.

An aggregate of rock fragments that formed a diamond,

a very strange celestial body.

How in the world did it come to have this shape?

In Colorado, a scientist has analyzed the asteroid's shape

to deduce the origin of its formation.

Astrophysicist Kevin Walsh specializes in asteroid research.

In a computer simulation of a similar object in space,

when the speed of its rotation increases,

its shape changes before our eyes.

So if we take an asteroid of this diamond shape,

we think that this bulge at the equator

is due to rapid spin,

causing material to move from the mid-latitudes,

or even the poles, down to the equator.

Billions of years ago,

asteroids collided violently,

and smashed into a myriad of fragments.

These free-gloating pieces rotated at high speed,

and over time,

they accumulated through the force of gravity,

and formed an aggregate.

That's how the diamond-shaped asteroid, Ryugu,

came into being.

This presented a major barrier

when it came to landing Hayabusa2.

In fact, the potential landing zones

were restricted to an area 30 degrees

north and south of the equator.

Hayabusa2 runs on solar power cells,

and if it strayed too far from the equator,

it would receive insufficient sunlight

to continue its mission.

Given these conditions,

the team discussed potential landing zones.

To land safely, Hayabusa2 required

a flat area of about 100 meters square,

but the terrain offered no such safe space.

Only 15 sites offered anything close to safety.

And the final candidates were further narrowed to seven.

These sites were evaluated in detail,

when a new obstacle suddenly threatened

to scuttle the whole mission.

In order to collect rock fragments from Ryugu,

the sampler horn has to touch down on the surface.

But the horn is only one meter long.

If a boulder is larger than that,

the body of the probe will collide with it,

placing it in danger.

The final seven candidate sites

were all dangerous locations.

The project had encountered an unexpected obstacle.

There was no site where a landing could easily take place.

The team had to find a way past this unforeseen hurdle.

In August, over 100 project members came together

to discuss the problem.

Among the participants was Junichiro Kawaguchi,

Project Manager for the first Hayabusa project.

He suggested looking at the problem from different angles.

Mission leader Tsuda then came up

with a new imperative for landing.

We want to acquire experience

by doing such very close-guidance navigation.

According to Tsuda,

descent training exercises could improve

the probe's accuracy,

and avoid dangerous boulders when landing.

After nine hours of discussion, LO8-B,

an area with relatively fewer rocks

was selected as the prospective landing site.

The probe is 300 million kilometers in space.

For radio signals to reach that distance

takes about 17 minutes.

If a threat is discovered during final descent,

commands from Earth arrive too late,

and the probe crashes.

To overcome this problem Hayabusa2's onboard computer

engages an autonomous flight,

making its own observations, and judgments,

while in motion.

September 11th, 2018,

the probe approaches the LO8 landing site

to conduct observations.

The plan is to have the craft descend

to 30 meters above the surface,

and examine each of the rocks at the site.

The descent begins.

This is a faithful visualization of Hayabusa2's flight,

based on actual data from the probe.

Hayabusa2 maintains a steady descent.

As it reaches an altitude of 600 meters above the surface,

suddenly the data transmission breaks off.

Hayabusa2's altimeter

shows an abnormal number.

In an instant, the reading jumps

from 600 to 7,000 meters above the asteroid.

What happened to Hayabusa2?

This was an emergency.

Due to this unforeseen development,

the landing was postponed indefinitely.

Could the probe ever return to Earth,

with evidence that the building blocks of life

came from a rain of asteroids?

A discovery that linked life's origins with asteroids,

was made in California in 2012.

Amateur photographers, Lisa and Rick Warren,

were taking their morning walk one day.

I looked into the sky,

and I saw this flash,

so I told Lisa, I said,

"Hey, look at that."

All I did was just grab my camera.

I didn't even know.

I honestly didn't see anything.

I just pushed the button,

and happened to catch three pictures.

A streak of light cutting across the sky.

Lisa had captured images of a meteorite

plunging towards Earth from outer space,

and disappearing behind a mountain.

Prompted by the Warrens' eyewitness report,

a research scientist raced to the site.

Peter Jenniskens is a prominent meteorite hunter.

He and a colleague search the vicinity

where the meteorite landed,

but found nothing.

Disappointed, Peter gave up for the day, and left the site.

After about an hour of searching,

I arrived back at the car,

and suddenly I noticed that just a few meters from the car

are these little bits of black rock.

And that was it.

That's what we were looking for.

Look how fortunate.

This is where you parked the car,

that's where the meteorite was.

So let me show you what we found.

It's a very dark, blue rock.

This is what he found,

a small black rock,

about one centimeter in size,

dubbed, The Sutter's Mill Meteorite.

I did not immediately recognize

that this is what I was looking for,

because I wasn't that familiar

with this type of meteorite.

This strange black meteorite

was sent to scientists around the world for analysis.

(dramatic orchestral music)

Among them was Sandra Pizzarello,

and world-renowned authority,

who at 86, has spent

over half a century studying meteorites.

(dramatic orchestral music)

Inside the fragment, she found a substance

that was surprising, even to her.

Oxygen-containing organic material,

which I'd never seen before.

But they offered a glimpse of molecular evolution

of the biogenic elements that preceded life.

Her analysis uncovered a substance

that is a building block of all life forms.

The fragment contained a chain of carbon atoms

with an oxygen atom at one end.

It could be called a scrap of life.

From the most ancient life forms,

to life on Earth today,

all living things are made of cells.

Each one of those cells is enclosed by a membrane.

Cell membranes are comprised of long chains of carbon,

lined up in long rows.

What surprised Pizzarello,

was that the meteorite contained

those long chains of carbon,

that scrap of life.

In fact, science has run into a stumbling block

regarding the origin of life on Earth.

Until recently, the prevailing theory

was that these carbon chains

were formed from materials that flowed up

from within the Earth.

However, with more research,

it became clear that these chains were quite scarce.

Where then did the building blocks of life come from?

Meteorites provided hints that might unlock this mystery.

In the far reaches of this starry sky,

lie innumerable celestial objects,

that are the source of meteorites.

These are the asteroids that float within the solar system.

Examining these asteroids one by one,

it was found that one of them

had the same color components as the black meteorite.

It was the asteroid, Ryugu.

What was the reason behind Hayabusa2's sudden ascent?

It turns out that the surface of Ryugu,

is too dark to reflect much light.

Hayabusa2 could no longer tell how high it was.

Sensing danger, it shifted into an emergency ascent.

It is believed the surface of Ryugu is so dark,

because it widely covered with carbon.

Across the world,

scientific interest in the probe of Ryugu grew even greater.

For JAXA, the stakes were high.

Can the team successfully return with a sample?

During the down time for reviewing the landing plan,

the flight team conducts three practice descent runs.

First, they would need to drop their surface camera probe.

On October 3rd, MASCOT was dispatched

to investigate the surface of Ryugu,

prior to the landing of Hayabusa2.

German and French scientists who built MASCOT,

followed closely as the probe began its descent.

When the craft reached an altitude of 51 meters,

the MASCOT lander detached.

These photographs were taken as MASCOT was falling.

Spinning as it fell,

it landed on the surface without incident.

The first closeup images of Ryugu

showed an unusual world of just dark rock,

with no sand or dust.

A surface strewn with rough boulders.

It was clear that the landing

would face severe difficulties.

On October 25th, a rehearsal of the landing was conducted.

The probe would descend

toward the newly selected landing site,

approaching as close as possible to the asteroid.

Tsuda wanted to ensure they succeeded in dropping

the target marker that would guide the landing.

The plan called for Hayabusa2

to descend toward the landing site, LO8-B.

From a height of only 12 meters,

the target marker would be dropped.

The goal, fall within the 20 meter circle

of the landing site.

Then Hayabusa2 would ascend to a spot

directly above the target marker and stop.

This would confirm the stabilization of the craft.

The target marker operation is about to begin.

Hayabusa2 approaches Ryugu.

It passes the 40 meter mark.

All are anxious.

The marker is released as planned, success!

This is the actual image filmed by the probe.

The white dot is the falling marker.

It has landed,

then bounces and rolls.

After rolling for about two meters,

it hits a rock and stops.

Detecting the target marker,

Hayabusa2 ascends and stops in position directly above it.

The craft is perfectly stable.

(group laughing)

The all-important landing marker has been set.

But that night,

the team makes a disturbing discovery.

When they examine the location of the marker,

they realize it was outside the 20-meter circle

of the landing site.

Here was a new obstacle for the project team.

The marker had missed the target area.

But Hayabusa2 needed a marker to guide its safe landing.

They had to find a new landing site,

where the marker would be visible.

A possible solution was proposed by Tomokatsu Marota,

an expert in lunar topography.

He suggested calculating the height of the rocks

near the marker with greater precision.

All off the images sent by Hayabusa2

were captured from directly above.

They showed the width of the rocks, but not their height.

But Marota noticed that the rocks

cast faintly visible shadows.

Since the position of the sun was known,

it should be possible the height of the rocks

from the length of their shadows.

Marota measured the rock shadows near the target marker,

one by one, and calculated the height of countless rocks.

As a result, he ascertained

that there was just one area near the target marker,

only six meters in diameter,

where the craft could land safely,

far smaller than the original estimated 100 meters

needed for safety.

And the area was around the marker

was crowded with big boulders.

Hit any one, and it would end the mission.

Was there a route that avoided the dangerous boulders,

while still keeping the target marker in sight?

The team simulated some 100,000 routes of descent.

They finally found an approach

that would result in a sure landing.

This involved following the marker guide

to a certain height,

stopping, then carefully moving six meters horizontally,

before finishing the descent.

This strategy would enable the six-meter wide Hayabusa2

to land in the six-meters-wide landing site.

February 21st, 2019,

it's the start of a harrowing

24-hour-long touchdown mission.

(dramatic orchestral music)

An error in the numeric data of the Hayabusa2 computer

will take five hours to correct.

The asteroid Ryugu is rotating.

If the departure is delayed by five hours,

the landing area will also shift.

Should they abort the mission for today?

Or should they dare to continue?

Tsuda decides

to continue the landing operation.

The team will increase the speed of descent

to make up lost time,

aiming to land at the original target site.

Hayabusa2 uses more of its jets to approach Ryugu

at twice the originally planned speed.

By that evening, they've been able to make up the lost time.

The next morning, the day of the landing.

Hayabusa2 is now only 500 meters away.

That's just 1,500 feet from its target,

the asteroid Ryugu.

This is the final hurdle,

the decision must be made now,

whether to go for the landing or turn back.

If it's a go, Hayabusa2 will switch to autonomous flight.

Communications, flight control, altimeter,

only after all 13 teams signal okay

will the landing mission be green-lighted.

The landing is a go, the command has been sent,

and the probe switches to autonomous flight.

Now it's 45 meters to Ryugu.

These computer graphics are based on actual flight data.

Hayabusa2 locates the target marker.

The probe reads the asteroid's topography,

and makes fine adjustments to its position.

And then it heads straight down towards the target marker.

From here on, detailed data from Hayabusa2

will not reach Earth.

The team can only watch the monitor

indicating the probe's speed.

Data sent afterward showed that the probe halted

at an altitude of 8.5 meters.

As planned, it made a painstaking horizontal move

to avoid the large boulder.

Turning its jets on and off numerous times,

the probe aims for a space barely bigger than itself,

only six meters wide, to make its touchdown.

The control room is in countdown mode.

At 50 seconds, Hayabusa2 should be landing.

When it touches down, a red dot should appear here.

Still, no red dot.

(group exclaiming)

(group applauding)

This is the moment they knew

all the obstacles had been overcome.

(soft vocal music)

This is the image of the first touchdown

recreated faithfully from the probe's flight data.

February 22nd, 7:29 a.m.

Hayabusa2 had finally touched down on the asteroid Ryugu.

14 years after the first Hayabusa mission,

the project team accepted the challenge

of conquering unknown realms.

(gentle orchestral music)

But there is one more task ahead for Tsuda and Saiki,

and the team.

Explode a crater on Ryugu,

to capture uncontaminated samples from under the surface.

It's risky, and could jeopardize the probe,

and the hard-won sample inside.

The whole mission.

But it is crucial.

A new subsurface sample could hold the key

to understand how and when

the earliest building blocks for life

may have arrived on Earth.

This dangerous second mission for the Hayabusa2 team

was spurred by research into when the oldest forms

of life on Earth originated.

This is the Labrador region of Canada,

near the Arctic Circle.

In 2017, something remarkable was discovered here.

Breaking off a piece of rock and examining it,

black grains were found.

When they were analyzed,

they were found to be traces of microorganisms.

They dated back 3.95 billion years.

These grains were traces

of the oldest forms of life on Earth.

Further, they were already advanced enough,

that they grouped together to form a colony.

In fact, the dating of the oldest forms of life on Earth

has been pushed ever farther back in time.

For many years, scientists believed

that the earliest forms of life

appeared 3.5 billion years ago.

Then, in 1999,

traces of life were discovered from 3.7 billion years ago.

Then the discovery made in 2017,

pushed the timeline back further

to nearly four billion years.

The world's textbooks have been repeatedly revised.

The formation of the Earth

dates back some 4.5 billion years.

The surface was covered by an ocean of magma,

with scorching temperatures over 1,000 degrees Celsius.

Of course, the raw material of life was not present.

From these beginnings, life emerged on Earth

relatively quickly.

It evolved rapidly.

Why this happened is one of the greatest mysteries

of contemporary science.

Faced with the need to revise their thinking,

scientists began to look beyond the Earth, to space,

for the origins of life.

Asteroids that came

to ancient Earth from space,

brought materials that provided the building blocks of life.

(dramatic orchestral music)

Ryugu is the type of asteroid

that contains large amounts of carbon and water.

At the time of their formation,

were very hot inside.

As a result, an environment like a hot spring develops,

which creates substances with longer chains of carbon.

It is believed that this process

created the substances that later evolved into life.

In order to prove this theory,

Hayabusa2 was designed to gather

fragments of rock from Ryugu.

But sampling rock from the surface would not suffice.

Even on the same asteroid,

matter that has been exposed to sun rays

for long periods of time,

is different from unexposed matter.

Destructive light rays from the sun

continue to strike the surface of the asteroid.

The long chains of carbon atoms are severed and disbursed.

The sun doesn't penetrate the surface,

so the long chains of carbon

remain undamaged in the subsoil.

To explore the roots of life on Earth,

the plan is to blast the asteroid,

and gather the uncompromised substances below the surface.

That is Hayabusa2's most important mission,

and the team's greatest challenge.

There was great pressure on Takanao Saiki and his team,

to devise a successful plan to collect subterranean sample.

Saiki struggled with the problem

of how to dig a hole on the face of a distant asteroid.

One of the first plans called for firing a rocket at Ryugu,

to cause an explosion on its surface,

but with this approach,

the heat of the explosion would sever

the long chains of carbon,

so this idea was abandoned.

There was also a proposal to land the probe

and have it drill a hole,

but this proved unworkable.

The asteroid has weak gravity,

so it would require a large amount of fuel

to hold the craft on the ground.

Then, he visited

an explosives manufacturer in Fukushima,

with a plan that might salvage the mission.

Saiki's proposal would work like this.

A launching device would separate from Hayabusa2,

and detonate, sending a projectile down

to blast a hole in the asteroid.

With this approach,

the explosion would not burn the long carbon substances.

Development of the device began.

The goal was to keep it under 10 kilograms,

but to make a projectile that would travel

more than two kilometers per second,

faster than a rifle bullet.

Many trials were conducted before this device,

an impactor, was completed.

To reduce its weight,

it has a simple cone shape,

rather than the barrel of a cannon.

The critical projectile

will be made by deforming the copper disk.

When the explosives in the cone detonate,

the energy is concentrated in the center of the disk,

causing to form into a ball.

This becomes the projectile striking the asteroid.

A pointed projectile has greater force

if it hits an object straight on.

If it hits at even a slight angle,

the impact is reduced dramatically.

But with a round shape,

the maximum impact is always achieved.

(dramatic orchestral music)

However, experiments showed it was very difficult

to get the copper disk to form a near-perfect sphere.

The experiments continued,

making minute adjustments

to the configuration of the device.

Three years after development began,

a test firing was conducted,

using the same amount of explosive

as in the final design.

It was a major, dangerous undertaking.

If the test failed,

the schedule for the launch of Hayabusa2 itself

would be at risk.

(siren blaring)

(explosion)

(explosion)

The blasted copper disk formed a ball,

just as designed.

The device that would penetrate an asteroid,

had been perfected.

April, 2019.

The operation to blast a hole in an asteroid,

for the first time in history,

will soon be attempted.

Directing the blasting operation is of course,

Takanao Saiki.

He sits at the center of the control room.

Great risk is attached to the operation.

There is a possibility it could destroy

the Hayabusa2 space probe.

When the impactor detonates,

it breaks into many small fragments,

hurtling through space.

If those chunks collide with Hayabusa2,

they could deliver a fatal blow.

There is only one zone where the craft will be safe,

behind Ryugu.

The strategy is to use the asteroid as a shield

to evade the fragments.

However, once released in space,

the impactor can only maintain its target

for a maximum of 40 minutes.

It will take Hayabusa2 up to 37 minutes

to reach the safe zone,

a margin of just three minutes.

Saiki has to direct this operation

with no room for failure.

At 10:56 a.m. Hayabusa2 releases the impactor.

This is actual footage taken right after the release.

The impactor's timer has begun ticking.

It will detonate in 40 minutes.

Hayabusa2 moves at maximum speed toward the safe zone.

Will it arrive there in time?

The team in the control room closely monitors

the signal from Hayabusa2.

It's the only way to verify

that the spacecraft survived the operation.

The countdown to detonation begins.

If the signal continues for three minutes

after the detonation, Hayabusa2 has survived.

(applauding)

Hayabusa2 is safe.

Even while accepting congratulations,

Saiki remains uncertain.

He still didn't know if the projectile

has hit its target,

and succeeded in blasting the hole

that could solve the mystery

of the origins of life on Earth.

Just then, an announcement is made.

The latest image from Ryugu

had arrived in the next room.

In fact, as Hayabusa2 moved to shelter

it released a small camera in space.

The camera would attempt to capture an image

of the moment of impact,

which couldn't be seen from the back side of Ryugu.

This is the image the camera captured.

Two seconds after the blast,

rocks were ejected to a height of several dozen meters.

Conclusive evidence that a hole had been dug

in an asteroid, deep in space, for the first time ever.

(applauding)

Saiki's decade long dream

had been realized.

(dramatic orchestral music)

4.6 billion years ago,

the solar system formed out of gas and dust.

The sun's gravity attracted heavier materials,

forming celestial bodies made of rock.

These coalesced into rocky planets like Earth and Mars.

(light vocal music)

Further away from the sun, where it was cold,

objects formed that contained

large amounts of ice and carbon.

Most of these were absorbed by gaseous planets,

like Jupiter and Saturn.

But some of the remained,

to become asteroids like Ryugu.

These asteroids, far off in the depths of space,

would later provide the roots of life on Earth.

How did this drama unfold?

(light orchestral music)

How was it that these asteroids,

so distant in space,

could have played a part in the origin of life on Earth?

Kevin Walsh believes that a major upheaval

in the solar system took place,

which he likens to the scattering of dandelion seeds.

In the same way that a dandelion,

like a dandelion puff, full of all of its seeds,

when the wind blows on that and poof,

they go off and they float around,

and they land in different parts

of a beautiful lush meadow like this,

each one of those carries the potential seeds

for a new plant or for life.

Walsh simulated

what occurred in the solar system,

soon after its formation,

4.5 billion years ago.

The solar system began as a great disk of gas and dust.

The large planets, Jupiter and Saturn,

were the first to form.

In the inner region were asteroids made of rock.

And floating in the outer region

were asteroids containing carbon and water.

Walsh recreated the ancient solar system on his computer.

The red and blue dots are asteroids.

So when we start this movie, a simulation,

we see Jupiter migrating inwards.

Now a big, important piece of this,

is that the gas disk itself is evolving.

It's moving and changing, it's flattening,

and it's drifting in towards the sun.

It's like it's stuck in a flood,

and it pushes Jupiter inwards towards the sun.

As time proceeds further,

a mysterious phenomenon occurs,

where Jupiter and Saturn had been migrating

into the inner solar system,

the now begin to move back into the outer region.

The reason?

Much of the gas in the disk had been swept up or scattered.

The flow of gas toward the sun was diminished.

And the force pushing Jupiter and Saturn inward, dissipated.

So they began moving outward in what is called,

the grand tack.

So Jupiter and Saturn changed direction.

What happens to them?

So they had come all the way into the inner solar system,

and now they're turning around

and going all the way back out.

And so they start encountering all of the small asteroids,

that they had thrown further out in the solar system.

And they throw some of those back,

and they end up in the asteroid belt.

This was the most significant incident

in the history of the solar system,

the great planetary migration.

Walsh believes that this migration

swept the building blocks of life toward Earth.

Let's take a look at this grand spectacle.

4.5 billion years ago,

the newly formed solar system

is wrapped in a dense field of gas.

First, Jupiter forms.

It is the largest planet in the solar system.

Pressed by the drifting gasses,

Jupiter begins to move toward the sun.

The great planetary migration has begun.

In Jupiter's path, lie rocky asteroids.

When the planet passes close by,

they are scattered in all directions.

(dramatic orchestral music)

Some of them land on Earth, in its primitive stage.

This is how the Earth came to be.

After some delay,

Saturn too, begins to migrate toward the sun.

Then the migration comes to a halt,

for the time being.

But an even greater convulsion is waiting in the future.

The gas around Jupiter and Saturn

is drawn in and scattered by the planets,

and steadily dissipates.

As the flow of gas towards the sun diminishes,

the force pushing the planets inward is reduced.

The two planets influence each other,

and move in resonance,

migrating back into the outer region of the solar system.

Floating in that outer region are asteroids

that contain large amounts of ice and carbon.

Ryugu is this type of asteroid.

Within these asteroids there are areas like hot springs,

that retain the heat from when the asteroid formed.

This is where those building blocks of life on Earth,

the long chains of carbon, are created.

Jupiter and Saturn pass through the region

that contains a multitude of these asteroids.

These asteroids are stirred up,

and like the seeds of a dandelion,

scatter in all directions,

carrying the building blocks of life.

Some of those asteroids roam through the solar system,

eventually land on Earth.

Large numbers of asteroids, like Ryugu,

fall onto Earth.

In this fashion, a tremendous cache of the ingredients

that make life, was brought to Earth.

This was the grand migration of the planets,

that made possible life on Earth.

One important effect of the grand tack,

is to send C type asteroids,

from way in the outer part of the solar system,

into the asteroid belt, and eventually onto the Earth.

Otherwise, the Earth would have been built

from mostly dry, organic, poor material.

That is something we're doing,

that is something that I visit too,

by going to a C type asteroid

and bringing back a sample,

might help to answer some of those questions.

20 days after the blast on Ryugu,

the danger of flying fragments has passed,

and Hayabusa2 turns to recording images of the crater.

Results are monitored in the operations room.

The images from Hayabusa2 will be delivered here, first.

Saiki can't wait to see them.

They get their first look at the crater.

Compared to the image of the ground before the explosion,

the surface has been blasted away,

leaving a large hole, with a diameter of 10 meters.

At the bottom of the hole,

the long sought after subsurface material lay exposed.

The surest way of getting a sample,

would be landing Hayabusa2 in the crater.

But they encounter a formidable problem,

that renders that plan unworkable.

There are two large rocks in the crater,

that would block Hayabusa2's descent.

In addition, because the sides of the crater are steep,

it proves impossible to land the probe in the hole.

Is there a way to get the samples

without landing in the crater?

The project team conducts numerous experiments

under conditions mimicking those in outer space.

This test fires a projectile into material,

that represents the surface of Ryugu.

The marble is a large boulder,

black sand represents the surface,

and white sand is the material below the surface.

The projectile hits,

the marbles, representing rocks, are blown away,

along with the white subsurface sand.

The subsurface material falls

a great distance from the crater.

Hayabusa2 could still gather samples

by landing near the crater, instead of inside it.

Where is the best spot near the crater,

for Hayabusa2 to land?

The team ponders the issue.

After thorough analysis of the topography,

two possible landing areas emerge.

A relatively flat and safer area

on the south side of the crater,

and a rocky, and more dangerous area, on the north.

The north area is closer to the crater,

and so would likely have more of the subsurface material.

But most of the scientists argued against landing

in the more perilous northern area.

It ran the risk of losing the space probe entirely.

It was then that Saiki spoke up.

He contended that it was worth

taking the greater risk.

The prize could be source of life on Earth,

and landing on the north

put them closer to more subsurface material.

However, the meeting concluded that the craft

should proceed with preparations for landing

on the crater's south side.

May 16th, 2019,

Hayabusa2 is to descend

on the south side of the crater,

and approach to just 10 meters above the surface.

The plan calls for the probe to release

a target marker as a guide for the landing.

Hayabusa2 steadily descends.

When it reaches a height of 50 meters above the asteroid.

Hayabusa2 aborts its descent,

and begins an emergency climb away from Ryugu.

Dropping the target marker

was now out of the question.

However, the camera team, preparing for the worst,

had made a contingency plan.

The result was an unexpected gift.

This is the photograph that was taken.

It provided the first detailed picture

of the area north of the crater.

After analyzing the image,

it was found that there was a flat area,

albeit narrow, where a landing was possible.

Around that time, further analysis detailed

how the subsurface material had disbursed.

Rihonda's attention was drawn

to how the color of the material

was different from the surface of the asteroid.

Comparing images from before and after the blast,

the slight difference in their color was evident.

Based on the direction of sunlight falling on the surface,

corrections were made to bring out the true color.

This was the result of the painstaking analysis.

The subsurface material appears black in the image.

It did not spread in an even circle,

but rather was concentrated on the north side.

A thick layer of subsurface material

had settled on the north side,

with these results as the deciding factor,

a landing on the north side, as Saiki had advocated,

was agreed on.

July 11th, 2019.

The day of the landing has arrived.

This is a graphic visualization

of the actual flight data Hayabusa2 sent to JAXA.

The probe descends toward the landing area

north of the crater.

At an altitude of 500 meters,

it reaches the final checkpoint.

A decision must be made to continue the landing or abort.

Only after all 13 teams have signed off,

will the landing be given the go sign.

The command to carry out the landing

is sent to Hayabusa2.

There is no turning back now.

At 9:40 the probe is 30 minutes from its target zone.

It is heading toward a landing zone

on the north side of the crater,

that is only seven meters across.

A tight fit.

The probe itself?

Six meters across.

(tense music)

Avoiding the dangerous boulders,

it descends carefully.

At this point, the Hayabusa craft tilts to one side.

In order to avoid the boulder on the left,

the craft changed its approach angle.

This was the final maneuver

for making a successful landing.

Finally, it prepares to touch down.

10:06 and 18 seconds, touchdown.

At that instant, it fires a bullet,

and collects the fragments of rock that swirl upwards.

(cheering and applauding)

(dramatic orchestral music)

Hayabusa2 had retrieved the key

to understanding the roots of life on Earth,

a goal pursued by scientists all over the world.

This is the actual footage of the landing.

The sampler horn touches down without fail,

and captures the precious cargo,

the asteroid's subsurface material,

that may unlock the mystery of the origins of life.

It's a historic achievement.

Now Hayabusa2 is heading toward its home planet,

bearing a load of fragments from the asteroid.

It will reach Earth in late 2020.

A capsule containing the materials from Ryugu,

will be detached in space,

and head toward its final challenge,

entry into Earth's atmosphere.

What surprising new knowledge will that capsule carry?

(dramatic orchestral music)

When it's open,

it may well shed new light on the deep bonds

that link our lives to the universe.

(dramatic orchestral music)