PINCH OF COMET DUST LANDS SAFELY ON EARTH

by LightEye, Sunday, January 15, 2006, 07:24

http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8586

Pinch of comet dust lands safely on Earth

NASA is celebrating the safe return to Earth of a pinch of dust harvested from a comet. On Sunday morning, after a seven-year journey, its Stardust spacecraft dropped a capsule containing comet dust into the Earth's atmosphere and it landed gently in the Utah desert in the US.

The textbook landing was greeted by whoops of delight from mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "It's one of those moments in life which is almost so fantastic you can't describe it," said Ken Atkins, former project manager for Stardust at JPL.

The Stardust spacecraft was launched in February 1999, and reached a comet called Wild 2 in January 2004. Comet Wild 2 orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter.

The spacecraft flew within 236 kilometres of the comet and extended a tennis-racket-shaped collector to trap dust particles in Aerogel, a transparent solid so light that it almost floats in air. Scientists think it captured more than 2000 particles wider than 15 micrometres.