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Stardust Apparently Successful

Posted by michael on from the three-years-till-we-really-find-out dept.

Naomi_the_butterfly writes "The Stardust mission, a craft launched in February 1999, just concluded its encounter with comet Wild 2 at 11:40:35 am PST. The encounter went without a hitch, with about 72 images taken and comet coma (tail) dust collected! The first images will be downloaded to JPL over between 1:30 and 2:30 pm, in time for a press conference at 3:00 pm PST. Today a comet, tomorrow Mars!" Space.com has a picture taken by the spacecraft.

3 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. Re:This has been done before by dreamchaser · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What is innovative? They are returning samples to Earth, the first time any automated probe has done that and the only material gathered direct from the source since the Moon landings!

    I think I just bit on a troll...

  2. Re:This has been done before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sorry but I do think that these days, anything related to "space" and "success" is slashdot worthy ;-)

  3. To all those who say this mission was unnecessary by Naomi_the_butterfly · · Score: 4, Insightful
    This mission has gathered leftover dust that has been frozen inside a comet, held in the most pristine conditions, for billions of years. You and I are made of this stuff, dust from the explosions of nearby first generation stars (ours is a second or third). This is basically a way to look back in time to when our solar system was just forming.

    on another note, an article of mine got posted! woohoo!