Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

NASA Stardust Returns to Earth

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the well-isn't-that-special dept.

quadsoft writes "The Globe and Mail reports "Dugway Proving Ground, Utah -- A space capsule ferrying the first comet dust samples to Earth parachuted onto a remote stretch of desert before dawn Sunday, drawing cheers from elated scientists. The touchdown capped a seven-year journey by NASA's Stardust spacecraft, which zipped past a comet in 2004 to capture minute dust particles and store them in the capsule.""

8 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Wow by SunPin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is a truly impressive mission. Fire and forget is one thing but bringing back pieces of a comet is... in my opinion, right up there with the moon missions.

    --
    Laws are for people with no friends.
  2. Stardust Mission May Continue by Rob+Carr · · Score: 4, Insightful
    According to the article Capsule of comet dust lands back on Earth, "The Stardust mothership will remain in orbit around the sun, and Duxbury said NASA is considering sending it to another comet or asteroid."

    So, even after this successful capsule recovery, this might not be the end.

    --
    This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
  3. Yay for science! by quokkapox · · Score: 3, Insightful
    This is another example of why science is important and why it should be respected.

    We did it this time. The previous mission didn't work right, but this one nailed it. The political naysayers and critics who want to redefine science should pay attention.

    We did it this time, but even with our previous failure, how could we attain such a level of precision with our measuring and then engineering of the laws of physics and chemistry to achieve such a specific goal, to send out a space probe that mindlessly orbits around the solar system for years and comes back to us like a cosmic boomerang, and yet be drastically and unanimously incorrect when it comes to measuring the rate of radioactive decay of various elements in the extensive global collection of terrestrial geological samples and also the synthetic elements we've created during the twentieth century atomic age?

    Have all the scientists in all the nations of the world simply got it exactly, equally wrong?

    The scientific framework of ideas is well-established and the theories are interdependent. This is why we can readily reject challenges like "Intelligent Design".

    Because they just don't fit in.

    --
    it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
    1. Re:Yay for science! by stewby18 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The scientific framework of ideas is well-established and the theories are interdependent. This is why we can readily reject challenges like "Intelligent Design".

      I'm not a proponent of ID, but if you want to argue against something it's best to understand it--and your argument has nothing to do with ID. While ID my be embraced by some literalist creationists as a way to slip in the side door, ID itself has no contradiction with things like the fossil record or carbon-dating results. At the core, evolution says "we evolved over time, through a combination of pure random chance and natural selection", whereas ID says "maybe it wasn't all random chance".

      The more crackpot end is where people try to prove ID, when it clearly isn't provable scientifically. But keep in mind that we also can't prove that what is attributable to random chance is truly random, and isn't actually at least sometimes influenced by some outside force with motivations that we don't understand.

      In short, it's perfectly possible to believe in a higher power guiding the development of life at some level without the slightest contraction with accepted scientififc observations. Lots of religious people do; you just don't hear about them because they aren't raising a big stink or proposing crackpot 'science' to try to make others accept that view.

  4. Went better than the last one, it seems. by FusionDragon2099 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/0 8/1625231/

    Seems NASA actually did something RIGHT for once. Three cheers for NASA!

  5. Re:Hey Smarty.... by quokkapox · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Maybe they'll teach you what a "Run-On Sentence" is.

    Take an English class yourself, and maybe they'll talk about poetry.

    I like run-on sentences. I'm just trying to communicate. Don't like it? Bite me, foe :)

    --
    it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
  6. Re:Hey Smarty.... by IllForgetMyNickSoonA · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What he wanted to point out, is that this mission is one more great achievement of science and engineering, one more proof of how valid the methods and the logic behind science and engineering is - regardless of what religious teachers are trying to persuade us. The religion, includung the ID "theory", has yet to come up with something nearly as impressive as this mission was, before they can claim *any* scientific credibility (remember: ID tries to look like science)

    BTW, if you're not against ID, you are for it. Simple as that.

  7. Re:At last! by MickDownUnder · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes...

    I think it would be the alien organism in peril not us...

    Earth organisms have had billions of years to evolve with billions of other organisms competing against them... Lining up an organism that has been floating round space with one from earth is most likely going to be like putting a featherweight up against a super heavy weight.

    The story of a killer organism from outer space is only slightly less ridiculous than the story of superman.