Tianwen 2 Arrives at Quasi-Moon Kamoʻoalewa, Returns Images

It has been a busy week for asteroid exploration. Earlier this week, Japan’s Hayabusa 2 gave usthe first flyby views of contact-binary asteroid 98943 Torifune. Now, China’s Tianwen 2 mission has arrived at its sample-return target, asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa.

Launched in May 2025, the mission traveled more than 1 billion kilometers (620 million miles), taking about 400 days to reach its destination.

The spacecraft achieved its rendezvous with the asteroid around June 7th, initially station-keeping at a range of 30,000 km before lowering its down to 2,000 km distant on June 19th. Its orbit then lowered further until it's now only 20 km away from the asteroid's surface. From that vantage point, Tianwen 2 captured the image of Kamoʻoalewa shown above, released by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) on July 6th.

The strange worldlet is only 27 meters (90 feet) across, a little over the length of an 18-wheeler trailer. Kamoʻoalewa is a "quasi-moon" of Earth, meaning it orbits the Sun but, because of its current orbit, appears to orbit our planet. Orbiting the Sun once every 365.77 days, Kamoʻoalewa sometimes leads and sometimes trails behind us.

“It seems an amazing achievement to observe and reach such a small object,” says Sara Russell (London Museum of Natural History). “I am excited about the mission, as it is a sample-return, bringing a fragment to Earth.”

Tianwen 2 is China’s first sample-return mission from an asteroid, though the space agency has previously returned samples from the Moon with its Chang’e 5 and Chang’e 6 missions.

Origin of a Quasi-Moon

The origin of Kamoʻoalewa remains unclear. Early on, spectroscopy of its surface resembled the space-weathered regolith of the Moon, as seen in samples collected by Luna 24 and Apollo 14. That similarity that an impact might have excavated the asteroid from the Moon, perhaps from Giordano Bruno Crater. However, a new study proposes that the worldlet is instead a closer match to a specific type of meteorite known as LL chondrites. That study suggested the asteroid is a member of the Flora family in the inner asteroid belt.

In the low-resoution image we have so far, tiny Kamoʻoalewa appears as a jagged, solid fragment, rather than a loosely gathered rubble pile, with few recognizable craters or large boulders. But any real analysis awaits sharper images as well as the sample-return itself.

Now, Tianwen 2 will map the asteroid in preparation for a sampling attempt in late July or early August. The asteroid rotates once every 28 minutes, making it a challenge for the team.

“It's an interesting beast, and landing is going to be fun on that thing,” notes CNSA observer and journalist Andrew Jones.

If all goes well, expect to see a sample of Kamoʻoalewa back on Earth by late November 2027. The spacecraft, meanwhile, will head on to Comet 311P/Pan-STARRS, with an arrival set for January 2035.

Certainly, updates from the CNSA are brief and sparse. Still, observers of China’s space activity, including Jones (andrewjonesspace.bsky.social on BlueSky) and radio observers such as AMSAT-DL (@amsat-dl.org on BlueSky) are good sources for updates on missions such as Tianwen 2.

It’ll be exciting to get samples of Kamoʻoalewa back on the Earth. It’s clearly an intriguing object!