Stardust memories revealed after seven years in space
Sravanthi Dama
Issue date: 1/20/06 Section: Sci-Tech
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The Stardust capsule recently returned to Earth after a seven-year voyage in outer space, during which it collected mounds of cosmetic dust samples.
Comets are small bodies of rock, dust and ice that are typically found orbiting the sun. They originate as a cloud that consists of leftover debris from the condensation of a solar nebula. Comets with orbital periods less than 200 years are referred to as short-period comets, and comets with longer orbital periods are know as long period comets and remain gravitationally bound to the sun. According to a BBC article, comets are thought by many scientists to serve as a kind of "cosmic time capsule."
"That means that they contain information about the conditions that were present when they were incorporated into the comet. That time was four-and-a-half thousand-million years ago, back when the Solar System formed; so what we hope to know from these particles is essentially what the Solar System looked like at that time and essentially what we're all made of," said Dr. Simon Green of the U.K.'s Open University Planetary and Space Science Research Institute. Since little is known about the actual particulate matter of comets, NASA set out to remedy this problem.
Launched Feb. 7, 1999, Stardust was set to orbit the sun and in the process collide with the Wild-2 comet. The Wild-2 comet originated in the Kuiper Belt, which orbits the sun beyond the planet Neptune. The Stardust capsule finally collided with Wild-2's tail on Jan. 2, 2004, nearly five years after its launch. According to the BBC, the capsule flew within 149 miles of the comet's nucleus, in the process picking up and storing several bits of dust, ice and other particles found there.
"The fundamental reason for this mission is that we are collecting what we believe are the best preserved samples of the formation of our solar system and they are preserved because they formed these comet bodies beyond the major planets out beyond Neptune," said Don Brownlee, principal investigator of the Stardust mission, in a CNN article.
Comets are small bodies of rock, dust and ice that are typically found orbiting the sun. They originate as a cloud that consists of leftover debris from the condensation of a solar nebula. Comets with orbital periods less than 200 years are referred to as short-period comets, and comets with longer orbital periods are know as long period comets and remain gravitationally bound to the sun. According to a BBC article, comets are thought by many scientists to serve as a kind of "cosmic time capsule."
"That means that they contain information about the conditions that were present when they were incorporated into the comet. That time was four-and-a-half thousand-million years ago, back when the Solar System formed; so what we hope to know from these particles is essentially what the Solar System looked like at that time and essentially what we're all made of," said Dr. Simon Green of the U.K.'s Open University Planetary and Space Science Research Institute. Since little is known about the actual particulate matter of comets, NASA set out to remedy this problem.
Launched Feb. 7, 1999, Stardust was set to orbit the sun and in the process collide with the Wild-2 comet. The Wild-2 comet originated in the Kuiper Belt, which orbits the sun beyond the planet Neptune. The Stardust capsule finally collided with Wild-2's tail on Jan. 2, 2004, nearly five years after its launch. According to the BBC, the capsule flew within 149 miles of the comet's nucleus, in the process picking up and storing several bits of dust, ice and other particles found there.
"The fundamental reason for this mission is that we are collecting what we believe are the best preserved samples of the formation of our solar system and they are preserved because they formed these comet bodies beyond the major planets out beyond Neptune," said Don Brownlee, principal investigator of the Stardust mission, in a CNN article.
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