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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.""

9 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.

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    Laws are for people with no friends.
  2. In unrelated news..., by rah1420 · · Score: 4, Funny

    All contact has been lost with the residents of the town of Piedmont, AZ. State Police have set up a perimeter around the area and all residents are advised to stay indoors until further notice.

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    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
  3. 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.

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    This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
  4. Typo, I hope by troon · · Score: 5, Funny

    From the article:

    Early Sunday, that capsule nose-dived through Earth's atmosphere at a record 29,000 mph, the fastest return for a man-man probe.

    No comment required...

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    Ydco co ,df C erb-y go. a Ekrpat t.fxrapev
  5. Some things are best left undefined... by durandal61 · · Score: 3, Funny
    From the Globe and Mail article:
    Early Sunday, that capsule nose-dived through Earth's atmosphere at a record 29,000 mph, the fastest return for a man-man probe.

    I am not sure I want to know what a man-man probe is...

    d.
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    My motorbike travels in Chile.
  6. 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.

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    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.

  7. Stardust@Home by Alsee · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sit at your computer and help the search with Stardust@Home.

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    - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
  8. Some serious rocket science by AngryNick · · Score: 5, Interesting
    WOW! Imagine pushing the return capsule off your side of the mother ship at 28,860 mi/hr and 4 hours later finding it safely on the ground...in the exact spot you wanted it to land. Mr. Bush, this is how space exploration should be done!

    From NASA press release:
    "I have been waiting for this day since the early 1980s when Deputy Principal Investigator Dr. Peter Tsou of JPL and I designed a mission to collect comet dust," said Dr. Don Brownlee, Stardust principal investigator from the University of Washington, Seattle. "To see the capsule safely back on its home planet is a thrilling accomplishment."

    NASA has posted a few pictures and press releases.

    Congratulations to all involved.