Kamo'oalewa asteroid's lunar origin challenged ahead of Tianwen-2 arrival

China's Tianwen-2 sample-return mission is well on its way to its target, an asteroid called Kamo'oalewa. The spacecraft left Earth in May 2025 and should return in late 2027 with samples of a space rock that scientists had assumed originated from the moon. However, a new study published in Nature Communications suggests that we may be mistaken about the asteroid's origin.