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Stardust Apparently Successful
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.
It's kewl.
Have a look:
Approximated 3D stereoscopic view of the comet
The fact that the comet was photographed from two slightly different angles makes it possible to create a stereoscopic view of the object. I enhanced the left-hand image a little bit to help bring out the depth of the object. The original image is way too washed out to make it a good fit.
In order to view it, sit squarely infront of your monitor at a distance of a few feet, cross your eyes gently, and try to merge both sides of the images into a "single image" in the center. If you're having trouble, try using the two red birds as a visual guide. Once the birds overlap, the rest of the picture will as well.
Ahhhh, I love stereoscopy.
Bowie J. Poag
It's big news because like someone else said, they're the first samples we've ever gotten that didn't come from the moon, and aren't inter-planetary dust particles. Plus, they're actually -returned- to earth, and not just measured/observed like all the other previous satelites have done. Wild 2 is presumed to be composed of the same substances that were present at the begining of the universe, and will contribute to a better understanding of how everything was back then. Since it's mostly just a dirty snowball floating in space, it's presumed to have been relatively unchanged for billions of years. The scientists will go wild over actual samples of particles that are this old.
What's also cool, is that the same stunt helicopter guys that they used in the matrix will be the ones that snag the returning samples's capsule/heatshield out of the air over utah.
My dad is the V.P. of Civil Space at lockheed martin (this project was under his management), so the family and I got to go and watch the final approach and the turning of the satelite (not that we could see anything other than people at workstations at JPL and Waterton) and see the first images. It was kinda neat to see all the scientists at JPL get excited that they were receiving data. And cooler to see the engineers here in Denver breathe a sigh of relief that it worked, and that it didn't get nailed by a rock going 36,000 miles an hour.