Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2018

12 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2018 SMALL BODIES one night of Ryugu (about 7 hours and 36 minutes). Once this first sequence fin- ished, the control center of DLR com- manded MASCOT to make a small move- ment in place in or- der to record some images that could be used to generate stereo views of the surface. From the landing to this last maneuver, the rover moved it- self on the surface by a few meters. Seeing that the battery was still well-charged, the mission technicians decided to let the rover make a small leap, thus managing O n this page and the fol- lowing one, a few of the first images of the surface of Ryugu, recorded at the beginning of the scientific phase of the Hayabusa2 mis- sion. [DLR, JAXA]