Genesis Space Capsule Crashes Down to Earth

THE Genesis space capsule, which had orbited the sun for more than three years in an attempt to find clues to the origin of the solar system, crashed to Earth yesterday after its parachute failed to deploy.

The fridge sized capsule spiralled out of the sky and thundered into the Utah desert.

It was not immediately known whether the cosmic samples had been destroyed. Nasa officials believed the fragile disks that held the atoms would shatter even if the capsule hit the ground with a parachute.

Hollywood stunt pilots had taken off in helicopters to hook the parachute, but the capsule – holding a set of fragile disks containing billions of atoms collected from solar wind – hit the desert floor without the parachute opening.