Traveling at more than 18,000 kilometers per hour, the spacecraft came within 400 meters of the asteroid’s surface and 744 meters of its center, a performance that beat JAXA’s own projections, which had estimated a minimum distance of about 800 meters from the center of the asteroid, known as Toutatis. JAXA scientist Yuya Mimasu told reporters that compared with every spacecraft that has ever flown past an asteroid, this one came closer than any before it. The previous record was held by a Chinese spacecraft that came within 770 meters of an asteroid, according to the business newspaper Nikkei. The mission builds on NASA’s successful 2022 test, when the US space agency altered the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos by crashing a spacecraft into its surface. JAXA and the European Space Agency are also working together on a new “planetary defense” mission to explore the asteroid Apophis, which is expected to pass close to Earth in April 2029.