Bruce Murray Space Image Library

Boulders all the way down

Boulders all the way down
Boulders all the way down Ryugu's surface is rocky on all scales. Hayabusa2 captured this photo during its descent to drop the MINERVA-II rovers on the surface. Near the upper right is a meter-size boulder that is composed of rocks of different shades. This is a breccia, a type of rock that forms in impacts that generate enough heat to melt rock and weld rock fragments together. JAXA, University of Tokyo, Kochi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji University, University of Aizu, AIST

Here is a detail view of the breccia boulder.