Tianwen-2
Tianwen-2 is a Chinese mission launched in 2025 to collect samples from the small near-Earth asteroid Kamoʻoalewa.
Tianwen-2 is a Chinese spacecraft launched in May 2025. Its first target is the small near-Earth asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa, a body probably less than about 100 metres across that behaves as a quasi-satellite of Earth, appearing to circle our planet as both travel round the Sun.
The mission plans to collect samples from Kamoʻoalewa and return them to Earth, then continue to study the main-belt comet 311P/PANSTARRS. The name Tianwen means 'heavenly questions', from a poem by the ancient Chinese poet Qu Yuan.
Kamoʻoalewa is particularly interesting because its spectrum resembles space-weathered lunar rock. Some scientists have suggested it might be a fragment of the Moon blasted off by an impact, possibly from the crater Giordano Bruno. If the returned samples confirm this, it would be a direct link between a near-Earth asteroid and a known crater, just as lunar meteorites link to the Moon.
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