> How is this possible. What are people been taught?

For each and every think you know, there was a time where you didn't know it.

On 9 May 2003, Hayabusa (meaning, Peregrine falcon), was launched from an M-V rocket. The goal of the mission was to collect samples from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa. The craft rendezvoused with the asteroid in September 2005. It was confirmed that the spacecraft successfully landed on the asteroid in November 2005, after some initial confusion regarding the incoming data. Hayabusa returned to Earth with samples from the asteroid on 13 June 2010.

Well, to be honest, in my country, we were only taught about the space race to the moon between Russia and USA.

I already knew other countries were launching rockets/satellites to the space but I always assumed they are not for scientific reasons.

obligatory xkcd https://xkcd.com/1053/