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!

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.