Hayabusa 2: Returning asteroid sample could help uncover the origins of life and the solar system

What is your idea of an asteroid? Many people think of them as potato-shaped, inert and perhaps rather dull, pock-marked objects--far away in deep space. But over the last ten years, two Japanese space missions - Hayabusa and now Hayabusa 2 - have dispatched that view to the history books. Asteroids are interesting bodies that may be able to explain how life on Earth came about.