near-Earth asteroid
Ryugu
A dark, diamond-shaped near-Earth asteroid sampled twice by Japan's Hayabusa2, which returned its material to Earth in 2020.
- Distance from Earth today
- 315.6 million km2.110 AU · light: 17 min 33 s
- Distance from the Sun today
- 212.0 million km1.417 AU
- As of
- 2 November 2026position from NASA/JPL orbital elements
Where it is today
Top view of the plane of Earth’s orbit, compressed distance scale. Open on the big map with the time slider →
Facts
- Diameter
- 0.90 km
- Dimensions
- 1.004 × 0.876 km
- Mass
- 0.000000449 × 10¹⁸ kg
- Density
- 1,190 kg/m³
- Rotation period
- 7.6 h
- Semi-major axis
- 1.191 AU (178.2 million km)
- Perihelion
- 0.963 AU
- Aphelion
- 1.418 AU
- Orbital period
- 1.30 years
- Orbital eccentricity
- 0.191
- Orbital inclination
- 5.9°
- Last perihelion
- 18 March 2026
- Next perihelion
- 6 July 2027
- Minimum orbit distance from Earth’s orbit (MOID)
- 0.001 AU (80,600 km)
- Albedo
- 0.045
Source of the figures: JPL Small-Body Database (public domain).
Discovery: 1999 – LINEAR survey
Description
Ryugu is a dark, carbon-rich near-Earth asteroid discovered by the LINEAR survey in 1999 and named after an undersea palace in a Japanese folk tale. JAXA's Hayabusa2 explored it in 2018 and 2019, finding a spinning-top shape covered in boulders. The mission deployed small hopping rovers and the MASCOT lander, fired a projectile to create an artificial crater, and touched down twice to collect samples, including material from below the surface. The capsule landed in Australia in December 2020, and the samples have proven to be among the most pristine Solar System material ever studied in the laboratory.