Though the original Hayabusa mission faltered early on, it eventually became a resounding success. This gif, which shows Hayabusa breaking up as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere, was created from a video captured by NASA's DC-8 airborne lab on June 13, 2010. The dust grains collected by Hayabusa survived the break up thanks to advanced heat shields.

Hayabusa collected over a thousand miniscule dust grains from Itokawa before returning them to Earth. But these grains are valuable to countless researchers, so they are often separated and shipped to labs all over the world.By focusing on just a few available microscopic phosphate minerals — which are rare in Itokawa particles — the authors of the new study measured how much uranium within the phosphate had decayed into lead. Since uranium decays at a known rate, this allowed the researchers to estimate the age of the asteroid, concluding it is 4.64 billion years old, give or take 180 million years.And by analyzing different uranium and lead isotopes, which have varying decay rates, the researchers also figured out that asteroid Itokawa had a catastrophic impact with another object about 1.51 billion years ago. However, the authors note the timing of this event is much less certain. It could have happened as recently as 660 million years ago, or as long as 2.36 billion years ago.Although the first Hayabusa mission was plagued with problems, that didn’t stop JAXA from quickly planning a second asteroid-return mission, Hayabusa2 . Launched in late 2014, this spacecraft recently sidled up next to the asteroid Ryugu, where it will spend a year and a half surveying the half-mile-wide asteroid. Like the original Hayabusa mission, H2 also aims to return an asteroid sample to Earth.

NASA Ames Research Center/Jesse Carpenter/Greg Merkes

Similarly, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is about to rendezvous with the 1,600-foot-long asteroid Bennu, which NASA classifies as "potentially hazardous" to Earth. After spending about a year and a half surveying and collecting data on Bennu, OSIRIS-REx will select and collect samples from a yet-to-be determined location in July 2020, before returning them safely to Earth for further study.As Hayabusa showed, even mildly successful asteroid return missions can result in fascinating discoveries. With Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx already underway, researchers will hopefully have a wealth of material to analyze in just a few short years, helping them piece together the complicated history of these cosmic bocce balls. And by better understanding how asteroids form and interact within the asteroid belt, we may just be able to avoid a scenario where Bruce Willis is our best chance of survival.