Hayabusa2’s daring 800-meter flyby reveals Torifune as a contact-binary asteroid

Japan’s JAXA Hayabusa2 mission carried out an exceptionally close flyby of near-Earth asteroid Torifune, reaching about 800 meters from the asteroid’s center at a speed of roughly 5.3 km/s after months of debate over safety. The flyby produced high-resolution imagery showing Torifune is a contact-binary asteroid larger than anticipated, with all four science instruments returning data and the most urgent data downlinked, while the full 300 MB dataset will arrive later. The mission demonstrates rapid asteroid characterization capabilities and could inform future planetary-defense efforts, including potential impactor-style investigations.