NASA spacecraft swipes specks of comet's dust
Posted on: Saturday, 3 January 2004, 06:00 CST
NASA spacecraft swipes specks of comet's dust
Associated Press
Saturday, January 3, 2004
Pasadena, Calif. -- A NASA spacecraft flew through the bright halo of a distant comet Friday and scooped up less than a thimbleful of dust that could shed light on how our solar system was formed.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said its Stardust spacecraft passed within an estimated 149 miles of the comet Wild 2 as it plowed through the gossamer cloud that cloaks the dirty ball of ice and rock.
The spacecraft recorded bursts of particles spewed by active jets on the surface of the comet. It also snagged an untold number of dust specks for later study on Earth.
"We have successfully collected samples from a comet and we're bringing them home," said Don Brownlee, the mission's main scientist.
Mission members said the unmanned probe made its closest approach at 9:44 a.m. CST, while traveling at a relative speed of 13,650 mph.
Shortly after the announcement, NASA released the first of 72 images Stardust took of the nucleus of the comet. The black and white photo -- taken at a distance of about 311 miles -- showed what looked like a giant frozen meatball pocked with sinkholes.
More images were expected to be received on Earth today.
Stardust was designed to gather hundreds if not thousands of dust particles streaming from Wild 2 (pronounced Vilt-2) during the flyby 242 million miles from Earth.
The unmanned spacecraft also was to snap 72 black and white close- ups of the comet's nucleus, thought to be just 3.3 miles across.
Scientists want to return samples of the particles to Earth for study because they represent pristine examples of the building blocks of our solar system dating back 4.6 billion years. They also believe the dust contains many of the organic molecules necessary for life.
Scientists will not know for sure what the mission has collected until the sample canister is returned to Earth, said Tom Duxbury, project manager.
If returned, the particles would represent the second robotic retrieval of extraterrestrial material since 1976, when the unmanned Soviet Luna 24 mission brought back samples of rock and soil from the moon. NASA's Genesis spacecraft should be the first since then come September, when it returns samples of the solar wind it has collected in space.
On the Net: Stardust mission: http: //stardust.jpl.nasa.gov
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