Little joy for Japanese asteroid mission

A mission designed to collect the first-ever sample from an asteroid looks as if it will return to Earth empty-handed. Japan's Hayabusa spacecraft was supposed to retrieve fragments from the surface of the Itokawa near-Earth asteroid, which could have helped scientists learn more about the role of asteroids in the early solar system and improve their understanding of the threat asteroids pose to Earth. But technical faults on the spacecraft have prevented this from happening and have also put back the spacecraft's return to Earth by three years.