U.S. spacecraft gathers comet particles to bring them to Earth
Posted on: Saturday, 3 January 2004, 06:00 CST
PASADENA, California, Jan. 2 (Kyodo) -- A U.S. spacecraft flew through the tail of a comet Friday and scooped up particles streaming from the comet, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said.
The Stardust spacecraft passed within 240 kilometers of the nucleus of the comet, Wild 2, shortly after 2:40 p.m., NASA said.
In doing so, the unmanned probe plowed through the gossamer cloud that cloaks the nucleus of the comet, estimated to be 5 km across.
The spacecraft will return the ''stardust'' to Earth in January 2006 by approaching Earth and jettisoning the sample-return capsule that will reenter the atmosphere for a parachute landing in the Utah desert, NASA said.
If the project is brought to a successful conclusion, the particles will represent the first retrieval of samples of particles of a comet.
Scientists hope their analysis of the collected material from Wild 2 will shed light on how the solar system was formed.
The spacecraft, launched in February 1999, had its encounter with the comet at a location about 390 million km away from Earth.
In addition to catching particles from the comet, which by itself is flying between Mars and Jupiter, the probe snapped pictures of the nucleus and the substances exuded from the nucleus.
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