Tianwen-2 reached Kamoʻoalewa, Earth's quasi-moon — and the lunar-origin case is wobbling
A Chinese spacecraft is now station-keeping about 20 km from a rock the size of an office block that has been shadowing Earth for at least a century. On July 6, the China National Space Administration released the first close-up image of asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa, confirming that Tianwen-2 had caught its target after a 13-month, roughly one-billion-kilometre chase. The image showed a small, elongated body, the shape you get from a loose pile of rubble rather than a solid boulder. ...