Stardust to Return January 15

accessdeniednsp writes "Seven years ago, the Stardust probe was sent to intercept Comet Wild 2, gather dust particles, and return to Earth. Stardust is scheduled to touch down in a Utah desert on January 15. From the article: 'Our mission is called Stardust, in part because we believe some of the particles in the comet will, in fact, be older than the sun,' said Don Brownlee of the University of Washington, the principal investigator of the mission."

Comments

Here's hoping this one doesn't......

[DoraLives]

land like the last one.

Re:Here's hoping this one doesn't......

[Bad D.N.A.]

"The failure of Genesis was tied to a badly designed placement of deceleration sensors, a design flaw which Stardust is apparently free from"

While it's premature to call Genesis a "failure" it certainly did not meet specs. There was a very interesting session at the AGU in SF from the Genesis team

http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/sessions5?meeting=fm05& part=SH32A&maxhits=400/

on what science they are doing and where they are going with their future research. No doubt everyone would have enjoyed a successful capture but even with the Utah desert impact there seems to be significant samples available for scientific study.

Very Important For Our Future

[cyberjessy]

Comets Crashing into our small planet is one of our biggest long term threats. The samples will go a long way in being able to identify their composition and look at means to destroy them in future.

Although the likelyhood of asteroids hitting the earth are higher, comets are special in that they give very little warning before they hit. Maybe a few years, while asteroids can be predicted much earlier. A large comet hitting the earth, will likely be an ELE (Extinction Level Event), destroying most life and all humans.

To me, this is something that we doing for sustaining human life. I don't care about the money spent, or the small chance of bringing in viruses, which they may have already considered.

There's always room for Aerogello

[AndroidCat]

This probe used Aerogel for catching comet dust. It looks like bad-assed Blueberry Jello with a Cherenkov glow!

I can't believe I didn't get on either of the name list microchips on this probe. Poot!

Re:Cool!

[node 3]

Other than the cool factor, the article doesn't touch on what good it will do us to study particles older than the sun. Anyone in the know care to elaborate?

Two answers, depending on if you mean, "why are we spending money on this?" or "science is cool, teach me more!"

The answer to the first question is two-fold. One is you never know where the next crucial clue or insight is going to come from, but even if you discount a scientific endeavor altogether as impractical, it's the same reason we play sports, watch TV, listen to music, etc. These all serve no primary, "practical" purpose, but they are crucial to a robust culture.

The answer to the second question is it will help us (I'm speculating here) understand which of the models regarding the formation of stars and star systems best match observed reality. This leads to answering other questions, for example, which stars to look at more closely (perhaps for signs of life). If you're still at a loss to why we should do such a thing, I refer you to my first answer.

Brownlee Rocks!

[ChuckleBug]

I was student of Don Brownlee at the University of Washington, and I think he's about the most decent and caring professor I've ever had. Even when I was an undergrad, I could go to his office and he'd just talk about his work for what seemed like hours, even to a lowly undergrad. I'm not saying this to name-drop -- I want people to know what a cool person he is. If anyone deserves success, it's Dr. Brownlee. Truly one of the good guys in science. He's one of those rare professors who managed to make himself famous (the guy has an asteroid named after him) while remaining humble and committed to helping his students learn. We need more scientists like him.

Particle age

[Atario]

we believe some of the particles in the comet will, in fact, be older than the sun

All particles are the same age -- about 13 billion years, when the universe cooled enough for them to form.

Oh, you mean superatomic particles. Never mind.

Dubious Reentry

[applemasker]

As pointed out here , Stardust uses the same re-entry method and was built by the same contractor (LockMart) as the Genesis probe which cratered into the Utah desert in 2004 (Sarcastic photo caption: "Thud!"). An investigation revealed that the gravity switches (sensors which are to detect the probe's deceleration in the atmosphere and trigger parachute deployment) were the most likely installed in the "incorrect orientation," which sounds like bureacraticese for "backwards."