St.Louis: Scientists analyze 4.5 billion year old comet dust

[rinselberg]

A microparticle of comet dust embedded in a tiny wedge of silicon aerogel extracted from the NASA Stardust collectors that returned to Earth on January 15. For more: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/r...stardust.shtml

ST. LOUIS. Feb. 20, 2006 (AP). Scientists said Monday they have begun slicing and dicing the first of hundreds of microscopic specks of comet dust, virtually unchanged since the birth of the solar system, that a NASA spacecraft successfully returned to Earth in late January. Preliminary analysis shows the dust, captured when the robotic Stardust spacecraft flew past the comet Wild 2 in January 2004, is unmistakably cometary in origin, said Don Brownlee, a University of Washington astronomer who is the principal scientist for the $212 million mission... The first major science results from the Stardust mission are expected to be presented March 13-17 at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference outside Houston.

Complete CBS report: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...n1330957.shtml


Brief audio clip ("click" to download).


An artist's rendering shows NASA's Stardust spacecraft closing in on Comet Wild 2. Credit: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/image...ature_103.html


Reprinted from Laramy-K Optical World News Forum

[jofelk]

$212 million to collect old dust ? Couldn't resist.

[chip anderson]

Does it have AR?

[QDO1]

would that be pre-Genisis?

[chip anderson]

ODIE: Perhaps but not Pre-God.

[Uncle Fester]

Everybody sing!... We are stardust.. we are golddust..we are billion year old carbon...and we've got to get ourselves back to the Gaardenn!!!

[optiqueen]

I think maybe I found some of this stuff on a shelf high up in my den. Anyone want me to send it to you?

[ziggy]

I think maybe I found some of this stuff on a shelf high up in my den. Anyone want me to send it to you?

Try Ebay,, you might be able to take a nice vacation!:p