BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Daring encounter with asteroid

A Japanese spacecraft is about to make a close encounter with an
asteroid in a mission to recover space dust.

The Hayabusa probe is stationed over a giant asteroid some 300 million
km from Earth.

On Friday it will descend to the surface of the 600-metre-long space
rock to carry out observations and release a tiny robotic probe.

More from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4403504.stm

Hardly a "giant asteroid", I have seen data for over 1900 larger ones, over
half of them MUCH larger. Admittedly should it ever enter a planetary
atmosphere it would be a "giant meteor", and perhaps even leave a "giant
meteorite" on landing, but these things are relative. "Dwarf stars" are
larger than Jupiter, after all.

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A Japanese spacecraft is about to make a close encounter with an
asteroid in a mission to recover space dust.

The Hayabusa probe is stationed over a giant asteroid some 300 million
km from Earth.

On Friday it will descend to the surface of the 600-metre-long space
rock to carry out observations and release a tiny robotic probe.

More from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4403504.stm